


Rebel and Conqueror

by OtherCat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Extremely Dubious Consent, Forced Marriage, Fuchsia! Karkat, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Pheromones, Slavery, Suicidal Thoughts, Trolls Conquer Earth, is not much different than original flavor Karkat, less slavery and more marriage by abduction actually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2020-03-13 03:22:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18932386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: Dave is the (former) leader of a resistance organization that has been captured by the Viceroy of Earth. The Viceroy Karkat Vantas has apparently been pitch-crushing on him for decades, and is determined to shove Dave Strider into his quadrants whether he wants to be there or not. (Spoiler: he does not.)





	1. ==>Dave: be The Dying Gaul only with less dying, and more hatesex.

You are basically fucked. You are fucked in a big way. They are going to be able to fit one of those leviathan class destroyers right up your ass when they are done with you. You probably won't mind either because they took the fucking filters out first thing. You have been breathing in Eau de Troll for about thirty minutes now, so you are half drunk with troll pheromones and hard as the Rock of Ages. 

Due to some joke of God or Evolution, humans respond to troll pheromones like they're a cross between come and get it and a fifth of the hard liquor of your choice. You get giddy and happy and all you can think about is getting it on with the troll right in front of you, or whoever was lining up for a sample of your reproductive tackle. It had made the first few face to face battles pretty interesting before everyone started using filters and blockers. Human pheromones work the same way on a troll. So far though, no one's taken off their filters to get a whiff of your extra special stank. 

Fun time is going to happen though, eventually. You are again, so very fucked. You get dragged along and dropped somewhere for a while, then dumped into a troll scuttle buggy. You have no idea of where it's going, you have no idea of where you're going and you end up in a kind of daze, and fall asleep. Then you're being dragged out, and taken along a series of corridors. You make comments to the tune of "hey, brought me home to meet the lusus?" and "You'll never make me talk, my mouth will be too full of your bulges." This gets you some laughs. Hopefully talking your ass off like this won’t also get you extra beatings later. 

You’re pretty much out of your mind, so it takes you a while to realize that they haven’t taken you back to base or whatever. The walls are too shiny and pretty. The floor is marble, light fixtures have gilt bits all over. This freaks you out a little. You maybe panic a bit. Then you panic a lot when you get shifted over to a bunch of servants who firmly scrub you down, while also maybe driving you a little crazy at the same time. There is way, way too much skin to skin contact, and never really in places that would do you any good. 

"He told us to bring you to him," one of the troll-soldiers says with an evil grin. "He's been wanting you for a real long time, Strider." 

"You caused Himself a lot of trouble but that's going to end pretty soon," Another soldier type says. "You're already desperate, aren't you?" The asshole slides his hand down your damp back, and you whine, pressing into his touch. "Going to be Himself's favorite pet." 

The asshole gets his hand smacked by one of the servants, who stares him down when he gets pissy about it. The commander backs the servant up with a "Not your pet, you dumb fuck," and whacks the asshole upside the head. 

The soldiers leave you in the care of the servants, who finish cleaning you up and adding a few decorations. All trolls, so far. You know "Himself" has human servants, or maybe slaves would be a better word. "He's very kind to his servants," a troll servant says. You wonder if you said any of that aloud of if it was a telepath. 

"I'm not a servant, I'm a fucking terrorist," you say. "I'm not going to let him just suddenly fuck me because I'm horny as fuck." 

"You can fight him as much as you want," the servant says, and _fucking pats your cheek,_ making you shiver all over. "You can't be a proper kismesis, but he's been waxing pitch over you for sweeps." 

The servants continue with the cleaning up process. You start to get dizzy and giddy again. You lose track of what's going on, and every touch makes your skin go electric and sensitive. You can't stop the little noises you make at being touched, stroked, and petted like some kind of dog. The servants dress you up in tight pants, a tight sleeveless shirt, both black with shiny black embroidery and little glass bead accents. They clean up your feet and hands and paint your finger and toenails. They add a lot of jewelry to the mix. They cuff your hands behind your back, and chain your legs together, just enough to walk, but not to run. 

You're gagged, collared and leashed. Then you're led out of the ablution chambers and down some more halls. You're dizzy, and more than a little freaked out at what's happening. 

The soldiers and servants were all implying that you were going to end up some kind of sex slave to Himself. Or rather, they had been outright saying it, when all you've ever heard was that he wasn't the type to get his jollies with that kind of thing. (He was surprisingly lacking in much decadence for an imperialistic son of a bitch scion of an ancient alien empire. He didn’t fuck around. He made the trains run on time. It was what made getting what Rose called population support so hard.) 

You'd always thought you'd end up being publicly executed, not whatever this was. You're shaking when they get you to the audience block. Your head full of fog, humiliation and rage. Himself is sitting on a big chair that isn't quite a throne, surrounded by various Imperial officers and nobles. They all watch while the servants tug you up to the chair and push you down onto your knees. 

"Dave Strider, my favorite thorn in my side," Vantas says. "It was fun, letting you fuck shit up for a while, but now you're making peaceful administration of this planet a little too hard, and I'm tired of being scolded by my Ancestor." He gets up from his throne and steps over to you, lifting you easily to your feet. "So, your rebellion ends today. Your organization, gone, your cells, destroyed. You'll be lucky if I ever let you out of my suiteblock again." 

"Wouldn't it send a better message to the humans if he were executed?" One of the nobles asks. 

"I'd worry about security," another noble says. "He's too dangerous as a focus for rebellion." 

"Execution doesn't stop dissent, it encourages it," Karkat says. He has you bundled up in his arms and you can't spare much thought to executions or anything else really. You are confused, and suddenly even dizzier than you were before. Struggling doesn’t seem to have much effect. "Also, I get to decide how dangerous he is or isn't." 

He talks some more and you understand absolutely none of it. His voice is just sound, rolling over you. The nobles and military officers are even more distant sounds. All you can think about is the solidity of his body, and how much bigger he is than you, how he's got you held close like a damsel in distress, and the way you can feel the heat of his body. It's embarrassing, and at the same time, you want so badly for him to touch you, and not stop. 

After the talking there's more carrying, and you drift a bit. When you come back up, you’re in a much smaller block, being cuddled on Vantas' lap. He's rubbing your cock idly through your pants. Your heart spasms, and you try to fling yourself out of Vantas' grip, but this doesn't go to well; he just reels you back in. "You were sleeping so well, too," Vantas says, sounding amused. He settles you back onto his lap. 

About the most you can do is growl, but that turns into a whimper when he goes back to rubbing your cock. You squirm around, but he's too strong for you. You're dazed and lightheaded and within a few minutes you desperately want more friction than what he's giving you. 

"You sound so good," Vantas murmurs, nuzzling at your neck. You realize he isn't wearing filters either, and that makes your heart go faster. "I've just been sitting here waiting for the pheromones really kick in, and fucking hell they don't disappoint." 

He kisses your neck, and slides you off his lap and onto your back. "You're beautiful," He says, smiling down at you. "You annoy the hell out of me, you know? My favorite thorn, you really are." He slips your shirt up, running his hands over your body. You moan and arch under his touch. "I bet you hate not being able to yell and curse me right now." 

God, you really do. You want to fight but you've been keyed up and desperate for hours now, so all you can do is whine through the gag and arch up into his touch. You want him, you want to lose your mind, you want to be so gone you have no idea of what's being done to you. 

Vantas takes his time though, slow and almost gentle. He kisses you; laps at you with a rough tongue that makes you shiver and whimper as he tugs your pants down around your ankles. He stops when he thinks you're overwhelmed, and then starts back up. You cry and scream through the gag, trying to get loose from the cuffs, trying to get closer. There is no closer to get; he sucks you off, and you thrust up desperately into his mouth, not really caring about his teeth or the cat-roughness of his tongue. 

It's an explosion when you come, a burst of pleasure that doesn't really seem to fade, just shivers through you. Vantas moves up and away, touches you with firm strokes along your arms and legs. He removes the cuffs, and you're too tired to fight. He takes out the gag, strokes your face. He kisses you on the mouth. You try to bite, but he doesn't seem to care, just chuckles. 

"I'm going to fucking kill you," you promise him, your voice hoarse and shaky in your ears. You start struggling again. Your arms feel like noodles from having been cuffed behind you for so long, so this doesn't do very much. You want to punch, but you're more flailing away at him until he gets you back under control. 

Vantas fucking paps you, like that's supposed to do anything. He pins your wrists above your head in one huge yaoi hand. He paps you again, this time it’s more of a slap. He's so much bigger than you. He can hold you like this, one handed. Your legs are still hobbled, and you are completely helpless. "No, you won't," he says. "Not any more than you were able to kill me any of the other times you tried." 

The hand not holding your wrists pinned is slipping under your shirt, stroking your belly, finding little ticklish places that make you twitch and squirm. "Fuck you," you pant. "I'm not-I'm not the only one in the resistance. You won't get all of us." 

"Except we have," Vantas says, sounding roughly amused and patient. Basically, like a condescending asshole. "The more reasonable factions will serve as the dissent necessary for a healthy government. The less reasonable dissidents will be imprisoned or reeducated." 

"Or turned into come dumpsters, apparently," you say. 

"Oh, you're a special case, Strider," Vantas says. "Remember what I said before?" He waits patiently. 

Before is a little hard right now. You're starting to _get_ hard right now. Again. His eyes are bright and weird fucshia-on-gold. "Remember what, you're a fucking tyrant turning humans into your sex slaves?" 

"Everyone wears filters and suppressants now," Vantas says. "Or they should. It could be worse, one of the species my brother rules is deathly allergic to Trolls. The poor things go into instant anaphylactic shock." 

"Sounds a lot better than being a come dumpster." 

Vantas snorts with laughter, and leans in again to kiss you, nibbling at your lips. You whimper at the sharp, tingling sensation. His free hand is playing with your balls, stroking the skin just behind them. Things are starting to get fuzzy again. "You only got as far as you did because I let you," he murmurs. 

"No," you protest. 

"Yes. You were always going to lose," he says. "That's what your little organization was for. I only let you go on as long as you did because you were so very fucking clever. I wanted to see how far you'd go, what you'd do next." his fingers are rubbing at the crease of your ass, you can feel light little claw scratches that make you buck and whimper. Through the fog, you are more than a little terrified of what those claws might do to your insides. 

"Fuck you, you didn't let anything," you say. "I'll keep fighting you, they'll keep fighting you." 

"No," he says. "They're already rolled up. Your organization is gone, swallowed up by the earth like false prophets in mythological scriptures. The Old Man was tired of my fucking around with you, so now I'm just going to be fucking you." 

He moves back a little, just enough to get your hobbled legs up so you're bent double. You can't breathe, and the edge of your vision is sparkling. Both of his hands are on the backs of your thighs, almost wrapped around them. (He’s so much bigger than you; huge, dark and terrifyingly alien.) Something slides against your ass and you whimper. He hums back, and the slick, sliding something rubs along the crease, then pushes slowly into you, stretches you. The something, his bulge moves and shifts inside you. It's big; it feels like it could split you open. "Oh god. Oh god please," is all you think to say. "Please." Don't hurt me. Fuck me. You aren't sure which you mean. 

"You feel so good, so good," Vantas says. "You're so beautiful you fucking idiot. So fucking reckless, I thought they'd find your corpse, and what would I do then you hateful idiot?" 

You don't...you don't understand a lot of what he's saying. It's all a confusing mix of praise and anger, a low thrum to go along with both. He pushes into you, and you're hard and desperate again. He shudders when he finally comes and then pulls free to fumble a bucket out of his sylladex, and spills into it with a little satisfied hum. He captchalogs the bucket, then bundles you up and carries you into a bedroom block. 

"Are you going to do anything stupid like try to kill yourself?" He asks as he settles you onto a huge, fancy looking human style bed. His voice is soft, and almost concerned. (Guilty? But you can’t focus, can’t get a read off him.) 

You get the sense that the room beyond it is pretty big, about the size of the living room of your last apartment. There’s a bedside table, and a light fixture in the ceiling made out of glowing worms. (You stare up at it with dizzy grossed out fascination. When and if you’re sober you’re going to try very hard not to think about the ceilingworms.) 

“Hey,” Vantas says. 

You blink at him, confused and exhausted. 

"Do I need to take precautions?" He asks. He's stripping you out of your shirt and then he unchains you and takes off your pants the rest of the way. You don’t fight him. You don’t have the energy or the brains right now. 

"What?" you ask after you rub together two braincells to spark some intelligence. 

"I don't want to come in here and find you've tried to strangle yourself with the bedclothes," Vantas says. 

"Oh, that'd totally make you lose your wiggly," you say after giving the idea due consideration. 

He sighs. "Yes, yes it would. I suppose you're too out of it, to really think about it," he says. 

"Mmm," you say, and drop off into sleep. 


	2. ==>Dave: see that it’s like Ceres Trampling the Attributes of War, except nothing like  that at all.

When you wake up you're sore and still tired. Your mind is full of a wispy fog that's half what actually happened, and half whatever your mind decided to throw at you. What you remember is getting captured, being brought to Vantas... 

You're his pitch chew toy. That's what you remember. High on pheromones, you'd still fought him, but it hadn't done much good. (You are still high on pheromones. Still dizzy and foggy, some part of your mind remembering how big and overwhelming Vantas had been. How out of control you had felt.) 

You check out the room. It's big, with a closet, a dresser, and a vanity. On the vanity is a little jewelry box. The closet is full of shoes and clothes, and you know with a sick sort of feeling that it's all going to fit. The room has a little ablution chamber. The door out of the room is of course, locked. 

You're naked: so you put on clothes. There's lots of black in the closet, and also fuchsia and red; just a little white. Everything has his goddamn sign on it, because of course it does. You pick a shirt, some pants and black slippers. 

You try really hard not to think about your organization, which you really hope isn't as buried as Vantas thinks it is. Not because you're hoping for rescue though. Someone had to keep fighting for Earth's freedom from the trolls, whether or not you found a way to escape Ming the Merciless. (There were other reasons you very carefully weren't thinking about, because telepaths) 

Vantas comes in with breakfast. Well, he comes in with a couple of servants, a little table, two chairs and a number of trays that get arranged on the table with plates. Everything smells really really good, and you remember you haven't eaten in...maybe a day? "Evening, Strider," he says, voice a little nasal from the filter he's wearing. Lucky him, the asshole, he gets a filter, while you get a face full of his pheromones. 

"Evening, you son of a bitch," you say, which is way, way ruder in Alternian. 

"I'm glad you’re just as much of a complete shit as you were previously," Vantas says cheerfully. "Do you want to sit and eat breakfast? Or do you want to exchange insults all evening?" 

You sit down, and get ready for some kinky power play. Making you eat the food off the floor or off his fingers or some shit like that. No kinky power play is apparently in the offing, because he sits at the table as well, and the servants uncover all the dishes. Breakfast is a bowl of broth with shrimp and flecks of seaweed floating in it, boiled eggs, fish and rice. "So are we just going to play house here, like you didn't assault me last night?" 

"See, I _would_ feel guilty about what I did last night except I know about one of your favorite interrogation techniques," Vantas says. "Of course, some of my soldiers have stooped to similar tactics, but I was eventually able to put a stop to it. But that's only an excuse for what happened. I was angry and relieved and I desperately wanted you in the position I put you in." 

Interrogation techniques. You glare at your bowl of broth in silence. If you got a troll horny and dazed with wanting to fuck enough, they'd tell you anything, just so long as you let them come. It wasn't like it was fucking _waterboarding,_ and it wasn't like they weren't doing the same kinds of things and worse to the rebels they caught. But there had been a reason why you'd known getting captured would mean being fucked. Or that it meant getting fucked. You’d known there would be people--for values of people--who’d want to get their own back for what you’d had done to their friends and quadrants. "And that's the position I can expect to be in from now on?" 

"Pretty much," Vantas says. 

You swallow. "You get I don't hate you like that, right?" 

"I get that too, it's why I'm going so gentle on you," he says. 

"Gentle," you say, and shiver all over. It's like you can feel his hand pinning your wrists in place. Like you can feel his hands on you again. 

"Eat your breakfast," he says, and you do. 

After breakfast, the servants clear away the table and dishes. Vantas gives you a shelltop that only connects to the Palace intra-net. “You have access to the entertainment database, and can contact myself, my head of house or my secretormentor if you need anything.” 

“How about a sword?” you ask. You want to throw the shelltop at him when he smiles at you, all weird sharp teeth and goblin grin. 

“Maybe if you’re good,” he says. “We can spar.” 

“It won’t be a spar, I’m going to kill you,” you say, your voice shaking a little. 

He laughs at your threat. “You can try,” he says. “Hell, you might even succeed, but it won’t change anything. My Ancestor will just assign someone else as Viceroy, and you’ll be executed.” 

“That sounds like a great idea actually, or maybe I’ll just force you to kill me,” you say. 

“That’s not going to happen,” he says. Before he leaves, Vantas uncaptchalogs a case that he sets on the vanity and leaves the block. 

When you investigate, you find that the case is full of…sex toys. There are vibrators, dildos of various shapes and butt plugs. There are also various bottles of lube. Included is a note. It says that you’re “allowed” to use whatever is in the box when the pheromones make you desperate. The “allowed” pisses you off, but the case itself pisses you off a little more. 

How are you meant to take this? Is this meant to be some weird twisted kindness? Have some sex toys, sorry, no filters or suppressants for you. Are there cameras that are going to record you so he has something to rub off to? Is this some kind of thing where he assumes you’ll eventually beg for the “real thing” over silicone? You put case back down on the on the vanity, and head back to bed. 

You should be thinking of a way to escape. You should be trying to find out what actually happened to your organization. (You refuse to believe Vantas took it out so easily. You refuse. What you didn’t learn from your Bro you learned from Rose’s mom and her organization was _tight._ ) Instead, you’re trying not to think about the box, the contents of the box, or how you’re just-woke-up wood won’t go away. 

You’re taking in pheromones you can’t quite actually smell with every breath, and you’re starting to feel restless again. He wasn’t even in the room anymore, but your stupid body is responding to them. You figure you might also be picking up the pheromones of whoever was keeping the place clean. It must be just layers and layers of “come and get it,” in here, no matter how clean it seemed. 

Because you’re an idiot, you actually try breathing a little more shallowly, like that’s going to help for a few minutes, then give up on that as pointless. 

Troll servants accompanied by the Viceroy’s personal bodyguard turn up every so often to give you meals. They keep their distance, and wait for you to finish your meals, and then clear away the plates and table without speaking to you. You sleep a lot, and try to distract yourself by trying to break whatever blocks are on the computer. You are not in any sense a computer expert, and completely fail to do this. You watch movies a lot, and lose track of time. You get a top of the line recliner moved in just to see what happens, and get one within the hour. You don’t see Vantas at all. This also pisses you off, though it should be a relief. You could probably ask and find out where he is, but you can’t bring yourself to do it. 

It’s what you think has been several days before you try to masturbate with just your hand, let alone one of the toys. Your usual fantasies don’t quite work though. You keep thinking about how Vantas might be recording what you’re doing, and your thoughts go in strange, illegal directions before you can come. (Thoughts like Vantas kissing you, his hands pinning you down.) You try to hide what you’re doing under the covers, embarrassed like a teenager afraid of getting caught. A couple times you accidentally fucking edge yourself, a straining, miserable experience that left you gritty eyed with exhaustion and keyed up for hours. 

Eventually, Vantas makes an appearance several nights in a row, usually for a meal. You keep waiting for him to come after you, but he never does. You keep thinking about it though. His fucking you creeps into your dreams, and it’s all you can think about when he’s in the room. He seems to enjoy how edgy you are, though he never mentions it. He talks about random things, about the movies he knows you’re watching, or the books you’re reading. Never anything about what might be going on outside, not even to gloat or mock or whatever. 

Finally, in a fit of temper, you say, “If you’re trying to outwait me, you’re going to be waiting a long fucking time to get in my pants. I’m not going to start panting after you just because I’m horny all the time.” 

“The world does not actually revolve around you, Strider. I’ve been busy, not waiting you out,” Vantas says. “If you’re feeling neglected, I suppose I could take you out for ‘walkies’ as one of my servants might say.” 

“Walkies,” you say flatly. 

“Walkies,” Vantas repeats. He looks amused. He produces a pair of cuffs, a chain belt, a collar and a leash. He had them the entire time, like they were accessories you should have on hand. “You must be pretty restless after so long cooped up in your room. It’ll just be to my exercise block and back.” 

“Not parading me around outside?” You ask. 

“Only if you’re really, really good,” he says. 

You want to take his offer of “walkies” and tell him to shove it, but if you don’t get out of the room, you’re going to go crazy. Also, you tell yourself, you can get an idea of how to get around his apartment. If you cooperate, you might get let out of the apartment, and then you can figure out the layout of the palace and eventually escape. “Right, okay. Let’s see this exercise block of yours.” 

He puts the belt around your waist, and you shiver, desperately wanting to get away from him. The chain belt has a chain that runs between your legs, so you can’t pull the chain belt up. His touch is gentle, and a little too much. No one’s touched you in however long, and you’re needy and desperate for contact, even if you’re hiding it as best you can. He hums at you, then cuffs your wrists, and clips their chains to the belt. There’s only enough play on the chains that you can maybe hold your arms up to your sternum. Next goes the collar and the leash. “Is the collar too tight?” he asks, checking it. 

“I can breathe,” you say. 

“Don’t hang yourself up on it, I’ll be pissed,” he says. 

“I care about you being pissed, why?” you ask. 

“My being pissed or not being pissed should be a thing you should become intimately concerned with,” he says, and tugs on the leash, leading you out of the room. You follow along and pretend not to be uneasy. 

You half expect there to be some kind of audience, but instead you pass through a couple of hallways, getting glimpses of a study/office of some kind, a room with a big screen and a couple of couches, a big dining room, a room that you think had a bar in it. There aren’t any windows. You get drawn short a couple of times, to the amusement of Vantas. “I’ll give you the tour on the way back, if you behave,” says. The exercise block is down a couple hall ways, and includes a lot of exercise machines, a sparring ring, and a separate block with a pool, which you find out about when he clips your cuffs to a very fancy treadmill. He programs the treadmill for a variable speed and incline, and tells you he’s off for a swim. 

You end up on a murderous forty five minute hike that you can’t turn off or adjust. You have a lot to say about this, at volume. From his laughter, Vantas doesn’t care. At the end of the hike you collapse to your knees, not caring that you’re hanging by your wrists with your arms splayed. It’s maybe another thirty, forty five minutes before he comes back to unhook you from the treadmill. You try to punch him, but you’re noodle armed again. He chains your hands behind your back this time, making the chains shorter when he clips them to the waist chain. Your heart starts to speed up. “Going for round two? Figures you’d get your jollies on someone who can’t fight back.” 

“You can fight as much as you want,” Karkat says. “Right now, we’re on a tour, though, so behave yourself.” 

He shows you around his hive suite, which you realize must be a completely self- contained section of the Imperial Palace. He shows you the “movie” block, the “socializing block,” the kitchens, the dining area, the breakfast room. There are servant’s quarters, additional guest rooms, and a block with a huge salt water “lounging pool.” There’s also the study-office you’d seen and a “garden” block with a little pond full of plants, fish and amphibians. “I’m really impressed by all of this,” you say in your most monotone voice. “But now I gotta piss.” 

“I’ll take you back to your room,” he says, and does just that. When he’s there though, it turns out he has other plans. Instead of unhooking you from the chains, he takes you into the ablution block and assists you with the goddamn loadgaper. You protest, but he laughs at you. “I have additional plans for you,” he says, and you shiver all over. 

He wants to show you his respite block, which is apparently right next to yours. There’s a huge recuperacoon along one wall, a couch and a huge entertainment screen. There’s shelves full of game grubs, movie grubs, books and other odds and ends. There are two additional rooms, one a ridiculous ablution block with a party tub big enough for maybe four people, and an alcove for getting dressed. There’s a closet, a dresser, a vanity and a full length mirror in there. This is way too many mirrors to all be facing each other. You try not to see yourself in the mirrors next to Vantas. How small you are compared to him, how you’re wearing a collar and a leash. 

The other room is…some kind of piling block. The floor is soft and padded, and there’s a concupiscent platform. It looks like a cross between a king size bed and a couch, with an indentation for the bucket. There are also a couple of chests in the room and bolts with loops on the end set at various points along the walls and the ceiling. He immediately grabs you before you can try to bolt. “Easy now, I can tell you’re impressed by my quadrant block, but this is for later,” he says with a smirk. 

“Right, when I’m too high and horny to stop you,” you snap. 

“You’re too high and horny to stop me now,” he says. “Did you enjoy your toys?” 

“I bet you enjoyed watching, you asshole,” you say back. 

“You know, I really did,” he says, smirk widening into something positively sadistic. “The times when you cried because you couldn’t come were hilarious.” 

“God, I hate you.” You want to spit in his face; you want to kick him in the crotch. Your hands are shaking a little, and you feel both hot and cold at the same time. You glare at him in humiliation and rage. 

“So much venom,” Karkat says with a delighted hum in his voice. He pushes you up against a wall, lifting you a bit so you’re out of contact with the floor and kisses you. You freeze for a second, and then try to bite him. This just makes him growl, and put a knee between your legs. Your dick likes this way too much, and you grind against his leg with a groan. “Beautiful,” he says, and sets you back down. 

You try to kick him, but he blocks you. “Fuck you.” You were on the edge of too much and not enough, dizzy and needing contact more than anything. His touch was burning you alive and you wanted so desperately. Your heart was beating fast in your ears; you thought it might beat right through your chest. 

He smiles at you. “Plenty of time for that,” he says. “I have a few days free.” He tugs you back into the main area of the respite block, and forces you down on the couch. He paps you a couple times, because you’ve gone back to struggling. 

“That doesn’t fucking work on me,” you say, breathless and lightheaded. 

“Hush,” he says, “I want to show you something.” The expression on his face is serious now, the amused superiority gone and replaced by a hint of exasperation. “I realize you don’t believe me about what I said earlier, so I’m going to fucking show you.” 

“Like I’m going to believe that anything you show me isn’t a trick.” At the same time, you’re worried. Maybe you even feel a little afraid. He seems really fucking sure you’ll believe him. 

He settles you on his lap, and turns on the entertainment screen with verbal commands. It starts with news footage, clips of courtrooms, prisoner line ups. You see Vantas making speeches and talking to reporters about how the removal of extremist elements will aid in the process of unification. He answers questions about the trials, about “reeducation.” He doesn’t answer questions about you in the clips, he doesn’t answer questions about Rose, and that scares you to death. Had she gotten away, or was there another room in this apartment where Rose was slowly going out of her mind? 

(Where were…you stomp down hard on the thought before it can get anywhere.) 

From the news, he starts showing you the entire campaign. How he was usually right on top of you, or even a couple steps ahead. There were clips of some of your meetings, meetings that should have been secure, should have been private. He showed you wrecked bases and safe houses. He tells you how he had people on the inside of the organization. 

He shows you one house, one particular house in upstate New York, burned to the ground. “No,” you can’t stop yourself from saying. No no no no. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be. 

“Rose Lalonde, pretty much the strategist to your tactician,” Vantas says. “It was hard to find her.” 

“Where is she? What did you do to her?” you ask. Your voice cracks and you need it to 

sound hard, strong. “What did you do?”

“She was pretty badly burned when she was pulled out of the house. Nothing Alternian medicine couldn’t fix, though. I sent her to my nestmate, Feferi on a fast courier.” 

(You want to ask. You want to ask. You want to ask but you don’t even dare think. It couldn’t have been a last stand. It couldn’t have been. They’re safe. They have to be safe. She got them out in time.) 

“Oh god,” you say, feeling bile rising in your throat. 

“If you look this gutted, just from her being off planet, I’d hate to think what you’d be like if she’d died,” Vantas says, rubbing your back under your shirt in slow circles. You try to pull away but he doesn’t let you. “Stop looking so pitiful, she’s alive you idiot.” 

“Being sent express to be some royal bitch’s sex slave,” you croak. 

“I’m sure they’ll find each other despicable,” Vantas says. He kisses you, your throat and then your mouth. You moan, despite yourself. After some more kissing, he pushes you out of his lap. “Let’s get you out of these,” he says, and rearranges the bindings so he can get you out of your clothes. 

You struggle some, but the struggling turns into something else, a need for friction, a need to press yourself against the troll wrestling with you. Vantas responds to your struggling, kissing you hungrily, nuzzling at your skin, though the filter he’s still wearing gets in the way. You go for the filter, hazy and angry that he isn’t affected the way you are, but Vantas dodges back, laughing. 

Once you’re naked, and your wrists are once more cuffed and clipped behind you to the belt, he carries you into the quadrant block. He ties your leash to one of the rings in the wall, and you briefly consider trying to break your neck or strangling yourself somehow as he rummages around in one of his chests. You decide you wouldn’t be able to do either fast enough as he comes back with a blindfold, some kind of restraint and a ring gag. 

The restraint turns out to be something intended to keep you in a kneeling position. Leather straps that buckle around your thighs and your calves. You struggle and kick, but he folds you up pretty easily. The ring gag is next, a hard flexible circle keeping your mouth wedged open. Once it’s strapped in place, he slips his finger into your mouth, pressing down on your tongue, slipping deeper to the point where you almost gag, but don’t. All you can think about is what his bulge is going to feel like, because that’s the next step. You can’t stop the whimper. 

“Shh, you’re fine,” Vantas says. His hand slips between your legs, stroking your cock. You shake all over with the intensity of the feeling. “Does that feel good, Dave?” he asks. Taking your moan and the jerk of your hips for an answer, he continues to stroke your cock for a while. When he stops, you whine a protest and he laughs. 

The blindfold is next, and the lack of vision makes everything a little more terrifying. You whimper when he touches you, plays with your balls, or strokes his hand over your spine. You can’t see and you’re completely helpless as he touches you. The part of your brain soaked in troll pheromones doesn’t care, just wants more sensation, the rest of you is terrified, waiting for things to escalate. 

You hear him get up, and then he tugs you closer. You’re between his knees, the collar pulling you closer still. He holds your head in place as something huge, flexible and strong explores your mouth and slides inside. Vantas makes pleased thrums and hums, a grinding sort of purr as his bulge fills your whole mouth and edges toward your throat. You moan, and try to breathe through your nose. You swallow around him, and he shudders all over, and pushes you back. 

You gasp, desperate for air, and find yourself on you back, your weight on your arms. He slides into you, slow and relentless, and you cry out. You can hear him talking, but you can’t parse what he’s saying. All you can do is feel him slide into you, open you up and move against the place that causes unbearable sensation to spark through you. You scream breathlessly when you come, gasping hard like you’ve just run a race. 

It doesn’t stop there. He lets you out of the leg and arm restraints, spreading you out boneless on the concupiscent platform. He gets blood flowing in your arms and legs with long firm strokes that slowly turns your body into a puddle of sensation. His touch is electric and intense, his smell--his pheromones--are everywhere, filling you with a relentless need. You beg for him wordlessly, spreading your legs for him, aching for him. 

When you’re hard again, he rides you, your arms pinned over your head. His body is like a wall arching over you, and you thrust wildly up into him until you come with a ragged scream. He pulls you close and undoes the gag before settling over the indentation in the concupiscent platform and releasing into the bucket. The sound he makes shivers through you, and for some reason, your dick makes a half-hearted attempt to rise. 

He pulls you into his arms and curls around you with sleepy kisses and a soft expression that you barely notice in your exhaustion. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ceres Trampling the Attributes of War," is an allegorical piece by Simon Vouet.


	3. ==>Dave: Fight With Cudgels, except completely fail to do that.

You wake up to him gnawing and licking at your shoulder, a pinprick scraping sensation that doesn’t really hurt, kind of the opposite, but will probably leave your skin red and raw looking. You shift, but he doesn’t let you go, just rolls you onto your stomach. You squirm, try to lever him off you, but he’s too damn heavy and you don’t have enough leverage. Vantas kisses you between your shoulder blades. “I took out the filter,” he says. “Might as well make this fair.” 

“Fair? How the fuck is anything you’ve done so far _fair?”_ you shout at him, and squirm some more. Your voice is hoarse and your throat and jaws are sore. Remembering how they got that way makes your face heat. Your heart starts to beat a little faster. You want more of the same, and you want to kill Vantas for making you feel that way. “Get off me. I gotta go.” 

You’re a little surprised when he lets you up. “If you shit or piss in my ablution trap, I’ll make you clean it with your tongue,” he says lazily. He’s lying on the concupiscent platform like you aren’t even a threat. Like there isn’t a damn thing you could do to him that would ever hurt him. “Are you going to relieve yourself, or are you going to stand there glaring at me?” 

So you stomp off out of the quadrant block and into the ablution block, which is just as huge and fucking ridiculous as your previous view of the room. The load gaper is separated from the rest of the block by a screen set in the floor and painted with a seascape. After taking a dump you take a look around. The ablution trap is like a squared off four stepped pyramid made of marble. On one corner is a large shallow bowl full of troll-type bathing supplies: brushes, scrapers, something like a loofah, various soaps and cleansers. There’s also a stack of towels and washcloths. There’s a mural involving some kind of weird beach with a jungle. The jungle is full of weird silhouettes; monster shapes. 

“Start the water,” Vantas voice says suddenly behind you, and you almost fall into the trap and break your neck. He’s leaning against the door, watching you, looking amused. “I sent someone for some clothes for you.” 

“So I’m your bath attendant too?” you ask. 

“You’re whatever I want you to be,” he says. “Anyway, we both need a bath, so start the water.” This is said in a completely reasonable tone. 

You make the water as hot as you possibly can. This backfires in that he picks you up and enters the bath with you. The water is hot enough to give you prickles all over, and you turn red almost instantly. Vantas laughs at you. “I thought highbloods couldn’t stand hot water,” you say. You were pretty sure it was definitely a thing. Seadwellers especially. 

“My Ancestor and I are kind of weird like that,” he says. “He lived in the desert as a grub and thought he’d just adapted to the heat, basking out on sun cooked rocks on salt flats like a giant smiling reptile in a swamp, but no, when my older brother hatched, _he_ was cold as fuck at normal seadweller temperatures too. Asshole has a complex about it, and he goes around in his moirail’s sweaters trying to tough it out. You couldn’t tell that from how I keep the temperature?” 

“Kind of had other thoughts on my mind,” you say. 

Vantas hums and lets you go. You move as far away as you can from him, against the marble side of the bath, which feels shockingly cold in comparison to the water. He ignores you, mostly, as he bathes, except to toss a washcloth in your direction. You watch him apply the cleaning agent, scrub himself down, then use the scraper. His skin is hard and armored (smooth to the touch) and just a little shiny. Whatever he’s using smells sharp and astringent. You poke around at the contents of the shallow bowl. You notice all the bottles are labeled “human safe.” 

“Planning ahead, huh?” you ask, grabbing a bottle. You aren’t sure if you’re going to use it, or throw it at him. 

“Would you prefer chemical burns?” Vantas asks pointedly. “I’m not sure what your objection is. Of course I planned ahead.” 

“My objection is everything. There is nothing here that I don’t object to,” you say. You’re shaking, hands clutching the bottle. Your head is full of the video footage he’d shown you, full of how he fucked you. You were dizzy from the heat of the bath, and from Vantas’ fucking pheromones. You were awake and frightened again because of things you didn’t know and weren’t going to ask. 

“That’s another thing you’re for,” Vantas says, and pulls you back into his arms. “Especially when I let you have your filter back.” He takes the bottle from you, and bathes you with the washcloth and a scraper. You whimper when the shoulder he’d been gnawing on stings from his ministrations. You find yourself leaning against his chest, dazed to the point of fucking swooning. 

“Gonna rape me when I’m not high and see how it compares?” You ask. “Gonna tell me I’ll be used to it by then, and enjoy it?” 

His arms tighten around you, and you feel a panicky kind of drop in your guts, thinking you might have gone too far. You don’t know what he’ll do to punish you. “I’ll spar with you then,” he says. “And no, you won’t kill me. You might want to, but you won’t.” 

You want to argue about that, but you can’t. He sounds so fucking confident. You aren’t actually sure you could beat him. You’ve fought and won against trolls his size before, and maybe bigger, but there’s something about him that’s fucking terrifying. (Maybe because of how easily he handles you. How he’s so fucking sure of everything. He’s psyching you out, that’s the main problem. God damn him.) 

He drains the tub and lifts you out of the bath. He dries you off, and then himself, then nudges you into the alcove where clothes have been set out. “Breakfast will be in the small dining block by the time we get there.” 

Breakfast is waffles and bacon and eggs. There’s apple juice. You scarf it all down and go for seconds. Over breakfast, Vantas wants to go over the terms of your confinement, and what the two of you are going to be doing for the next few days. You listen, because maybe there’s something there that will help you escape. It’s hard to think though. You’re distracted by Vantas’ hands, his mouth, and his arms. The way his voice is deep and full of odd scratchy undertones that you almost want to record and mix. The way he stares at you like he’s waiting for your next move, his eyes bright and strange. 

He wants to watch movies, after breakfast, in his movie block. You fall asleep, leaning against him, listening to the movie. The movie is some kind of action adventure, with a confusing switch of loyalties and an unexpected moiraillegiance. After a second movie, he wants to go the exercise block. 

He tests if you can swim by throwing you into the pool. Swimming is definitely a thing you know how to do, and he spends the next hour lurking at the very bottom of the pool, and occasionally pulling you under while you do laps. (You are not allowed to leave the pool. He is naturally a better swimmer than you could ever be.) After swimming is a light lunch and more movies followed by him kissing you, then dragging you back to his block and fucking your brains out. Then there’s a nap, dinner, more fucking, and sleep. 

The next few days are like that; activities, meals together, nap, more fucking. You bliss out a little, drunk on pheromones and sensation, your brain turns off a little and you don’t care. There’s talking, but you don’t remember what you talked about a few minutes later. Then there’s a last day. Vantas tells you the vacation is over, that he has to go back to work, and something tightens in your chest, and you don’t know why. Vantas laughs at you. “Don’t worry, you’ll still have limited access to most of the hivesuite,” he says. “And the toys.” 

“Oh well, great,” you say. 

Your brain clears a little, with Vantas back to work. You’re able to take some time to think, some time to just…deal. The resistance had been taken apart, completely destroyed. To hear Vantas tell it, the resistance was just something he’d allowed to exist until he didn’t need it anymore. (Something he’d allowed to exist as long as it had because of you, just because he liked outwitting you, as if he were playing some kind of game with you until his Ancestor told him to put away his toys.) Rose was gone. Ideas of how to rescue her somehow spun madly in your head at all hours. (You woke up from nightmares of what might be happening to her.) They were all useless. You were terrified for her, more than you feared for yourself. (You were terrified for so many reasons.) 

Your organization was gone. You were vanished away, something to be kept as some kind of combination trophy and fucktoy for the rest of your life. You wondered how long that would be. (You think about making it short as possible. That thought takes you down some dark roads.) 

You’re allowed out of your room now. There’s usually someone keeping an eye on you, usually a troll servant or one of his body guards. No one touches you, but their pheromones have a definite effect on you. There are places you aren’t supposed to go into. There are times when the door to your room is locked, and you can’t get out. You had been told that this would happen, but the first time it does, you’re a little panicky about it, then pissed. You don’t get an answer about what had been going on, but you figure that Vantas was entertaining guests, and he didn’t want them to see you. (Speculating on guests he might want to see you lead to some uncomfortable fantasies.) 

Vantas sends you updates and reports about what’s going on with the trials of your cell leaders and agents. He also spends a lot of time analyzing battle strategy and bitching about the infrastructure you destroyed. Long, long rants about how much it cost to rebuild. (THERE ARE HUMANS STILL HOMELESS AND STARVING. HUMANS I WAS TRYING TO FEED AND PUT ROOFS OVER THEIR HEADS!) He talks about collaborators who’d lost family members and concupiscent partners, children orphaned. 

you expect me to believe you care about that shit, you message him. 

WELL YOU CERTAINLY DON’T

we were fighting a war

AND I ENDED THE WAR, DIDN’T I?

You text back and forth all night arguing. You kind of lose track of what you’re saying and who you’re actually talking to, so when he bursts into your room with a terrifying expression on his face you panic, thinking you’re about get your ass kicked. Determined to fight back, you throw the shelltop at his head, and then follow up with a blow to his center of mass. Vantas folds up a bit, sheeting thick fuschia blood from his temple where the edge of the shelltop cover connects. 

He staggers back from the blows, but recovers way too quickly. He wallops you a good one as you try to run past him, which makes you trip. Then he takes you down in a tackle, winding one of your wrists up behind your back. Vantas is growling and laughing, covering you, and reassuring his bodyguards, who have come running at the ruckus. The bodyguards are extremely skeptical but back off. 

You’re held pinned like that, until you stop struggling. “Did I scare you, Strider?” Vantas asks. His tone is light and mocking. He sounds absolutely fucking giddy with delight. 

“Fuck you,” you say back. 

“Are you sure you want to be saying that?” Vantas asks, almost singing the words with a wide grin. You feel the drip of Vantas’ blood on your back and arm. “Goddamn, that hurt.” 

“Good.” 

“I was excited to continue our argument,” he says as the bodyguards come back, this time with a human in a pale green medical coat. “I’m fine, I have a hard goddamn head,” he says to his guards as he lets you go and stands up. He sways and lists off to one side, and one of the bodyguards immediately moves to support him. As he gets up one of the other bodyguards grab you before you can think to abscond. 

“Yes Viceroy, that’s why you’re dripping blood everywhere,” the doctor says crisply as she arrives. She’s a human of medium height with long dark hair she wears in a braid and glasses. She somehow bullies Vantas into sitting back down so she can examine him. 

“This isn’t too bad, and will probably close pretty quickly, but I’m going to seal it anyway.” He complains the entire time she cleans the wound, seals it, and bandages it. When she’s done she turns to you. Her eyes are very green and her mouth is in a flat line as she looks at you. “Were you injured, Mister Strider?” she asks. 

“Maybe some bruises, I’m fine…doctor.” 

She turns back to Vantas. “Viceroy, I’ll need to do a physical on Mr. Strider to establish a baseline, and I’d like any medical records you can give me,” she says. Vantas nods. “Right. I was going to do that. Consider them sent. Can I stand up now?” 

“Of course, Viceroy,” she says. “The physical?” 

“This Friday,” Viceroy says immediately. 

She gets out a shelltop. “Nine a.m.” 

“I’ll bring him,” Vantas says. 

“Thank you Viceroy,” she says, and absconds. 

The Viceroy gets slowly to his feet and gestures for the bodyguards to release you, which they do with extreme reluctance. They are even more reluctant to be dismissed. You stand there, nervous and uncertain, wondering what the hell happens next, looking at the broken shelltop instead of at Vantas. You can’t tell if he’s amused or angry, or some weird troll pitch feeling. “Let’s get out of the hallway, so the servants can clean,” He says, and gestures for you to follow him. 

Not to your room, but to his. 

There’s a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. You still want to fight, that’s still a thing, your pulse racing along, and everything too loud and too bright. You’re trapped and even if you’d gotten past him, there were still his bodyguards. (You were in so much trouble.) At the same time you’re numb, disconnected, and distant from whatever is going on. You follow after him, knowing you’re in trouble; he isn’t going to let you get away with making him bleed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fight with Cudgels is a painting by Francisco Goya


	4. ==>Dave: be the Portrait of a (Un) Clad Warrior

Once inside he hums, and wraps his hand around the back of your head, pulling you in for a kiss on the mouth. You’re whole body seems to wake up, shiver with the sensation of his mouth on yours, the way his rough tongue scrapes along your jaw to your neck. Everything is foggy, condensed down to the feel of his mouth on your skin, and your legs almost give out. You moan, hands reaching up to catch hold of Vantas’ arms. “I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he says. 

“Like you haven’t already? Like you aren’t going to because I hit you?” 

“Exactly like that,” Vantas says. He drags you over to the dressing alcove in his ablution block. He peels you out of your clothes, sets you on the countertop by the sink, and cleans you up. “I’m more annoyed you broke the shelltop than having it thrown at my head.” 

“Like you couldn’t buy a million of them,” you say. 

“I was taught to be responsible and take care of my property,” he says, with a wide, sharp toothed grin. 

You shudder all over. He means you. You know he means you. Any snide remark you try to make gets swallowed up by more kissing. You try not to notice your reflections in the various mirrors, the way you arch and squirm under Vantas’ touch. He laughs quietly when he moves away and you whine, trying to follow him. He laughs more when he flips you over onto your stomach on the counter and you gasp and swear. Your feet don’t quite touch the floor, and your overheated cock feels flash frozen by the countertop. 

He pins your wrists one handed behind your back, and you whimper and squirm as you hear him unfasten his pants with the other hand. You rest your face on the countertop, then curse and jump when he slaps your ass. “I’m going to fuck you,” he says, “and you’re going to watch yourself in the mirror.” 

That’s the last thing you want to do. Seeing him as well as feeling him fuck your ass, seeing your face as he pushes into you, feels like too much. It’s already too much and he hasn’t done more than undo his pants. You can hear the wet sound of him touching himself, coaxing his bulge out from its sheath, and you can feel your cock twitch in a way that’s fucking Pavlovian. You squirm a little, trying to grind against the counter, but you can’t get any leverage. “Oh god,” you say, and he laughs. 

“You should try begging my divine forgiveness, for I am a wrathful god,” he says. 

“Just fuck me,” you say, and squirm some more. You feel dizzy and a little breathless, you can see that your cheeks are flushed. Your lips are swollen and bitten from his kissing you. There are patches of flushed red and pink from his sandpaper tongue along your neck. You can see him towering over you in the mirror, feel him holding you down, trapping you. “Fuck.” 

He pushes in slow, with a humming purr. You can feel his bulge moving, twisting inside in a way that’s completely unlike getting fucked by a human. There’s no thrusting, no pulling out and pushing in. It’s all pushing, like it’s going to go on forever, like he’s burying himself in you. Pretty soon you’re so pinned, so compressed between Vantas and the counter that you can’t even squirm any more. All you can do is endure the twisting, stroking pressure inside pressing up against your prostate. You moan; feeling the building pressure of an orgasm, see the almost pained looking tightening of your face as you get closer. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Vantas says breathlessly. There’s an odd harmonic in his tone that sends almost pleasant chills down your spine. “I wish it’d been anger on your face, not fear. God, that throw was fast. I didn’t even have a chance to duck. You’re so good, and you’ll only get better.” 

Like an actual rival? Like you were an actual kismesis and not his trophy chew toy? The notion comes to you in a foggy sort of outrage. You struggle, but you’re still trapped. “I wish it’d knocked you out,” you growl. “I wish it’d cracked your skull.” 

“I have a hard head,” Vantas says with a low laugh. 

With another twist of his bulge you come with a scream, and sort of flatten out on the counter. Vantas pulls out, just as slow and intense as he pushed in, and you slide off the counter and onto the floor. Reciprocation is a slow, hazy thought you have. You turn and feel your way up Vantas’ leg, with intent to remove his pants, but he picks you up instead, and carries you to the quadrant block, where he sets you down on the concupiscent platform. 

You watch him hazily as he strips out of his clothes and cleans himself up before joining you. There’s more kissing, and then he guides your hand to his nook. The nook has soft, fat ridges, wider near the sheath, narrower toward Vantas’ ass hole. They’re clamped over the nook, a dusty pink against the gray-black of Vantas’ skin. Your fingers brush against them; they’re soft and damp and twitch at your touch. 

“First your fingers, then your mouth,” he says, voice low and soft. 

Your face heats. You are floored by the command, the assurance that you aren’t going to try anything. You think about the smell and taste of his bulge and the slippery wet lubricant of the sheath and wonder how the actual slurry was going to taste. 

You finger him, and Vantas sighs, lying back on the platform with his legs spread for you. His thighs tremble and the ridges clamp around your fingers when you do something he likes. He likes a lot of what you do. You have to almost massage the ridges before the slit opens up, leaking fuchsia pre. It smells salty and a little intense, but not bad. He jerks when you slip your fingers inside, exploring the soft wetness of his nook, and moans. “Strider,” he says, giving you an intense look that makes your body heat up. “I want your mouth.” 

Your mouth waters immediately and you feel like you’re on fire. You get down between his legs, put your face up against the ridges, and start licking. Vantas moans. The sound goes right to your dick, which makes its best effort to come up for a second round. His legs close around your head, the ridges of his nook close around your tongue, and you can feel something inside his nook move back against your tongue. He shudders and chirps, and one of his hands come down to pet your hair. He pushes you away before he comes, and spills into the bucket set in the indentation of the platform. 

Then he pulls you into his arms and makes you the little spoon, still making little chirps and roughly purring. It’s like being cuddled by a huge insectoid cat. Vantas runs hot, and his armored weight is distracting in more ways than one. Somehow, you still end up going to sleep. 

The actual punishment (Vantas refers to it as the actual punishment when he drags you off to the exercise room) is an hour and a half on the goddamn treadmill the next evening, followed by endless laps in the swimming pool. You’re so exhausted at the end you’re pretty much tempted to just sink to the bottom of the pool and not come back up. Since Vantas is also at the bottom of the pool, sinking is not an option. He switches from water breathing to air, closing off his opercula, and then fishes you out of the pool. He carries you to a smaller, heated pool. He slides you in, and settles down beside you. “That was your only escape attempt, so far. I’m not very impressed.” 

Your face burns. “Fuck you.” You’re too noodle-limbed by the heat and the soreness of your muscles to do more than move away from him, shoulders hunched. You want to punch him though, tear the amused interest right off his face. “It sure as fuck isn’t because I enjoy your company,” you tell him. 

“Though really, it was more of a panic reaction than an actual escape attempt,” he continues with a smile that shows all his teeth. 

“Fuck your panic reaction,” you say. “You slammed the fucking door open and looked crazy-mad, what the fuck was I supposed to think?” 

“Still, that was your first attempt.” 

“I have no idea where the fuck your quarters are in relation to the rest of the palace,” you point out. “There’s no fucking _windows_ anywhere, so I can’t judge direction.” 

“You’re waiting for more context concerning the layout then,” Vantas says, like he’s grudgingly giving you extra points for not being an idiot. “Sensible.” You can’t help the flicker of a glare in his direction at the “sensible.” He reaches out, touches your arm and you shiver all over. “I wasn’t angry, I was excited.” 

“Which would have translated to me getting pounded either way,” you say. You’re tired, and god, horny again. 

He pulls you close, sets you in his lap so that you’re straddling him, and you follow along. His hand wraps around the back of your neck and he pulls you in for a kiss you can’t help but return. Your hands skate over armored skin, the hard coverings over his gills. (He keeps them clamped tight around you. You’ve made a few attempts to go for them, but you can’t get a purchase.) You notice scars, and the way he holds still now that you’re actively touching him. He’s watching you, wary and interested. You want to rip his filter out, but he never seems as drunk as most trolls when they’re experiencing human pheromones. Why the fuck was that? 

“I’m fuchsia,” Karkat says. “You do not what to know what it takes to get me really smashed.” 

Yeah, you said that out loud. He kisses you again, before you can say anything in response. “I like arguing with you, it’s everything I hoped it would be,” he murmurs against your mouth. 

“I’m definitely here for your entertainment,” you mutter back. His hands are stroking up and down your back, sliding over your ass. His fingers dig in a little, massaging at your sore muscles. “And you’re apparently vacillating.” 

“Heaven forbid someone shows concern for a kismesis,” Vantas says mockingly. “Or moderate their pitch affections. Not that we are exactly kismeses.” 

“Your pitch chewtoy, that’s me, for apparently the rest of my goddamn life.” 

“Something like that,” Vantas says. “My advisor, my pitch interest, and the enemy I keep very close so I can keep an eye on him.” 

“What the hell makes you think I’m going to advise you of anything?” You ask. 

“You already have,” Vantas says. “You’re teaching me a great deal.” 

It’s already hot in the pool, but you feel your face heat. “Mostly about fucking humans,” you say. “Without their fucking consent.” 

“Mostly about fucking you,” Vantas says genially. “Wouldn’t you like to be a power behind the throne?” 

You can feel his bulge against your ass. It’s sliding along the crease, working its way into you. The stretch feels good, makes you go hard almost instantly. You move against him, but he holds you still. “I want Earth to be free,” you say. “I want you bastards gone.” 

“Well, you can’t have that,” Vantas says. “We won the planet, we won’t give it up. You’re part of the empire and we need to find the best way to integrate you.” 

“Civilize us? Make us your whores?” You grit out. 

“In-te-grate,” Vantas says, sounding a little breathless. “The main problem of course is our mutual reaction to the other’s pheromones,” he says, and keeps talking. It makes you impatient, angry and distracted by his words as opposed to the slow twist of his bulge, the way his arms feel holding you tight in a grip where you can’t get any friction. (He won’t shut up. Fucking hell, you’ve finally met the asshole who talks more than you.) 

You kiss him, but he keeps talking, little words and phrases keep escaping. You whine with frustration. “Shut up, shut up, oh my god please shut the fuck up.” He laughs, and that’s worse. He wraps a hand on your dick and you think you might explode. You thrust into his fist while his bulge moves inside you. It’s intense and good and too much. 

You come, clinging to him, and he holds you close, and it’s still too much. He comes with a shudder what feels like eons later. He quickly gets out of the pool, where he finds himself a bucket. He makes little chirping noises as he empties into the bucket, rocking back and forth. You can’t help the smirk. “Didn’t want to do it in the pool?” 

“Not really, no,” Vantas says, sounding strained and breathless. He sets the bucket aside and gets to his feet, pulling you out of the heated pool. He dries you, and then himself off. You are too much of a noodle to try to dry yourself, and also too tired to protest. He sets the pool on recycle mode, and carries you out of the exercise room. Again, you’re too tired to do more than whine in protest. He leaves you in your room. 

The next few days, the door stays locked, but you get a new shell top. Vantas’ comments about how you hadn’t tried to escape wander around in your head and fill you with guilt. Your reasons were valid. You don’t know the layout of the palace; you don’t know where his quarters are in relation to the rest of the palace. Without the necessary information, any escape attempt is going to be a failure. 

Also…there was Rose. You should be treating her like she was already dead. That’s the way it went. If someone got captured, if someone was being used as a hostage against you, they were dead if you didn’t have a way to rescue them. You knew that, and she knew that. (She was more ruthless than you in so many ways.) Some part of you is too afraid to do anything to move. 

You don’t even know what to do about Vantas’ comments about power behind the throne. About being his advisor. You don’t trust at all the idea of “integration,” for all the trolls had been talking about it since the last countries holding out against them surrendered. You knew your history, and that was never how it worked. The conquered got the shit kicked out of them while the conquerors stole their resources and the collaborators were rewarded for helping. There was never this “strengthening of infrastructure” and “cultural exchange and integration into the wider empire” bullshit the Alternians talked about. 

(It does not matter that most of your arguments with Vantas revolve around infrastructure and your attacks on it, and collaborators. It was all euphemisms for “plantations” and “colonies” and all of that bullshit. Rome sucked, the British Empire sucked, Imperialism always and will generally suck.) 

Friday, you go to the doctor. The doctor does not like you very much, but is polite. She asks questions, she wants to know about any illnesses in your family, all of that. Vantas is there the whole time, and you feel like a dog at the vet. The doctor makes notes and pronounces you healthy, and Vantas herds you out of the infirmary and off to the small dining room for lunch. Lunch is Weird Crunchy Bug Risotto, Extremely Suspicious Quiche That Has Bugs in It, But Also Bacon, And White Roasted Roots That Kind of Look Like Carrots. 

“My quadrants want to meet you,” he says about midway through lunch. 

“Do I have any choice in meeting them?” you ask. 

“Not much of one,” Vantas admits. 

“When is this going to happen?”

“They’ll be trailing in over the next few weeks,” Vantas says. “We haven’t been together all at once in a few sweeps. It’ll be interesting to see how you fit in.” 

“The fleshlight you keep in your nightstand?” You ask, looking at your plate. “Dildo, whatever. Real Doll.” 

“I don’t think of you as any of those things,” Vantas says. “And they won’t either. They’re all very curious about you.” 

You can imagine them being curious about you. It mostly involves you being passed around like a joint or something. “Whatever.” (A part of you that you’re coming to hate likes the idea way too much.) 

“They’ve only heard me bitch about you for sweeps,” Vantas says. 

“And now you’ve caught me,” you say. “I gotta be more boring like this right? You won; you got your rocks off like, multiple times. Pretending I’m some kinda prize you want to show off’s gotta be going too far.” 

“You are really insistent about not wanting to meet my quadrants,” Vantas says, guessing where you’re going. 

(You are not actually sure where you’re going.) 

“I am not one of your goddamn quadrants,” you say. “I’m not. I’m not your goddamn kismesis, and you’re doing some kind of creepy Stockholm thing. Or maybe Lima. I don’t fucking know.” 

“If I let you go. If you escaped, I would have to kill you,” Vantas says, slowly and patiently. “I am selfish, so I will keep you instead.” 

“God.” Almost, you want to make threats, it’s the only thing you have, so why not use it? But at the same time you can see Rose frowning at you, reaching for a notepad. Very serious, very calm. _How long have you had suicidal ideation, Mr. Strider?_

_I’m not, you tell her. I don’t. Jesus Rose._ But Imaginary Brain Rose just frowns at you, and you blink and it’s Vantas. He’s frowning at you. “The fuck are you looking at?” you say with a spark of belligerence. “Are you _vacillating_ your highness?” 

“I may have mentioned that showing concern for a kismesis isn’t vacillation. Let me also add It’s common fucking sense,” Vantas says. “Also, let’s put it on the table that it also isn’t vacillation if your entire goddamn line are aquadratic freaks and flip like hot grubcakes. It’s an entire thing, dumbfuck.” 

“Am I hittin’ a sore spot?” Your expression may’ve gone from pissy and bored to “shit-eating” though of course in an ironic way. 

“A small one, like the microscopic venom injecting needle of a floating colony organism,” Vantas says. “So fuck you, Dave, I’m showing you pictures of my quadrants.” He nags you into finishing your lunch first though. When you’re done, he just scoops you out of your chair before you can even try to get up, and carries you to his bedroom. You don’t even get a chance to protest this bullshittery. Settling down on the couch, he shows you pictures. Not just his quadrants. There are pictures of his brother, his ancestor, his ancestor’s quadrants, his nestmate Feferi. “We had a tendency to tussle when we were grubs, which was expected. Falling asleep in each other’s baskets or on top of each other was pretty much the opposite of expected. The sky fell, barkbeasts and meowbeasts started living together and so on.” 

He shows you pictures and videos of his “Lesser Challenge,” a ritual that was part combat and part debate series. There’s a picture of his Ancestor, a much, much taller clone, scarred and dark, with his arm around teen-Vantas’ shoulders. Both look dinged around the edges, and are grinning at the camera. There’s a kind of energy coming off the pictures. They both look almost normal in the picture, almost human, like they care about each other. (You don’t think of your brother.) You fall asleep, and don’t wake up until dinner. 

The first to show up a week later is Vantas’ matesprit, a cobalt blue guy in some kind of troll formal wear, carefully holding what’s probably some kind of present for Vantas. He has one broken horn, and a number of broken teeth. You don’t meet him so much as you’re present in the room when he enters. New guy, new pheromones that make you dizzy. 

For the past couple days, you’ve been in Vantas’ quarters, kneeling at his feet tied up with rope in some way while he pretends to work on his crabtop. (You’re pretty sure he isn’t.) Neither of you get off during this. (When he finally lets you go you end up using a toy, trying really hard not to have any particular fantasies.) 

This time it’s corset-ties around your chest, your wrists bound behind your back and fastened to the rope-corset. Your ankles were tied together and connected to the corset and your wrists so you’re more or less upright this time around and trying not to lean against Vantas’ legs. You are also gagged and pretty much glad you are because Big Blue is built, impressive in a suit and you are feeling kind of desperate at this point. Who knows what the fuck you might say about this hunk of troll man-meat. 

You apparently have a reaction on Big Blue as well because he takes one look at you and turns even bluer. He looks away from you quickly. “Oh my,” he goes, and his hands shake on the box he’s holding. It’s decorated with shiny silver paper all tied up with fuchsia and cobalt blue ribbons. 

Vantas gets up, and takes the box from Big Blue. “Are we apologizing for breaking our teeth?” Vantas asks as he carefully unwraps the present. 

“I promise I didn’t clench them,” Big Blue says. “Or grind them.” 

“Or bite robots with them?” Vantas asks. His tone is light and teasing. 

“I have never _bitten_ a robot,” Big Blue says, flushing. Wait, was it even flushing if you were blue? Fuck it. He was flushing. 

“Good job not crushing the box,” Vantas says. He manages to somehow sound approving saying that, instead of vaguely smarmy. 

“Thank you, sir,” Big Blue says. “The present well,” Big Blue continues, and his eyes sort of glance in your direction. “I wanted to congratulate you on your campaign.” 

“This is lovely,” Vantas says, taking out an elaborate necklace with rows of blue gems and silver charms linked together. “Ammonites and crabs! It’s completely charming. Every piece you’ve sent me is better than the last. Don’t think I won’t ask Nepeta about the teeth.” 

“A hobby sir. The teeth were an accident involving trainees who were insufficiently careful about shop cleaning procedures.” Big Blue says, but looks pleased with himself. Big Blue is very big and very blue. Vantas has to stand on tip toe to kiss him. (Big Blue leans down but not very far. Vantas gets a handful of hair and brings him down even lower for a kiss.) Then Vantas takes Big Blue over to the couch. 

“This is Dave Strider,” Vantas says, indicating you as he sits down. (He sets the necklace in its box on the couch.) Big Blue sits on the floor, on the other side of Vantas’ knees. “Dave, this is my matesprit, Equius Zahhak.” 

Big Blue looks at you, then away. “Hello Dave,” he says, in a tentative sort of voice. 

You try to convey “go to hell” with a glare. 

“He didn’t want to meet anyone, and while I would have otherwise let him sulk in his room, I suspect the auspitwits would not, so he’s here.” 

“Is it honorable to treat an enemy so?” Equius asks. “Especially one you feel pitch for?” 

“He’s earning the opportunity to use a filter,” Vantas says. 

“I’m sorry sir. I shouldn’t have spoken,” Equius says, giving you a curious, contrite look. 

“Don’t be an idiot. You think _Eridan’s_ going to point shit like that out?” he asks.“Let me braid your hair.” 

“Sir,” Equius says, protesting faintly. 

“Nope. Coronet braids with fuchsia ribbons. Then we decide what to do with Dave.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Portrait of a Clad Warrior is a painting by Girolamo Savoldo


	5. ==>Dave: be Mars Being Disarmed by Venus only with hatesex and voyeurism

You try to think of it as gathering intelligence, watching Vantas braid up Zahhak’s hair and do some kind of gossip and light dom shtick that Zahhak seems to eat up. It is twee and almost funny after the working over you’ve gotten. Zahhak’s sitting on a cushion on the floor between Vantas’ legs, looking soft and relaxed as Vantas combs and then starts to braid. Most of what you’re hearing gets lost in dark hands working dark hair into a braid full of ribbons. There’s something almost hypnotic about it, and the sound of a soft hum coming from Vantas, and a deeper one coming from Zahhak as they talk. 

(For all Zahhak’s earlier objection to your presence, he doesn’t seem to have one now. What did the little show of “good boy for calling me out,” you’d witnessed mean? Did it actually mean anything? You’re confused and a little dizzy, your arms and legs starting to ache from the position they’re in, you are in no condition to figure out what game Vantas is playing with his boytoy or you.) 

“…Lalonde,” Zahhak says, and you freeze, hoping Vantas forgot you were in the room, curled up against his leg. 

“What did you think of her?” Vantas asks casually. He also very deliberately pats your head, like you’re a dog. Yeah, he knows you’re still there. 

“Obviously a very intelligent female,” Zahhak says. “Perhaps too clever for her own good.” Zahhak gives you a brief look sidewise. “Kanaya denies it, but I think Lalonde is attempting to seduce her.” 

“Of course she denies it, Lalonde is exactly her type,” Vantas says. “Is Kanaya perhaps Lalonde’s type?” he asks. 

“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Zahhak says. “I did not engage Lalonde or Kanaya on the topic, though they seemed on friendly terms, for the most part.” 

You want to know what’s going on with Rose. You’re scared about what might be happening to Rose. You want to know who this “Kanaya” is, and what the hell Rose might be up to. You can’t express this so well due to being gagged. You glare at the both of them, but they ignore you. 

“How are you feeling?” Vantas asks Zahhak. “It should be taking affect.” 

“Aroused, though that could be you, sir,” Zahhak says coyly. Someone that big should not sound that coy. Jesus. 

“Idiot,” Vantas says fondly, and kisses the nape of Zahhak’s neck. “Undress for me, and go pick out some toys.” 

“For me or--” Zahhak glances at you. His expression is uncertain, but also interested. He opens his mouth, and then closes it, as if he wanted to say something to you, but then decided against it. 

“Both,” Vantas says. Zahhak strips out of his clothes and folds them, then absconds for the quadrant block. While he’s doing that, Vantas takes your gag off, and unbinds your arms and legs, pulling you up onto the couch. You’re little too floppy to do much of anything as he rubs life back into them. 

“Rose,” you say, trying to get a hold of Vantas. “What’s happening with Rose?” 

“Weren’t you listening?” Vantas asks. “She’s intelligent and attempting some kind of court intrigue.” 

“You said you were sending her to ‘Feferi’ who the hell is Kanaya?” You ask with a growl. 

“Kanaya is Feferi’s secretormenter, among other things,” Vantas says. 

Trying to figure out whatever Rose was up to with very little information and no context to go with it was nearly impossible. It was completely impossible with the way Karkat was touching you. “She’s her type?” Which she? Which her? You have no fucking clue, and Karkat isn’t likely to provide any. 

“Pretty close,” Vantas says. He kisses you, and you kiss back, dizzy and needy. 

“Lemme see her,” you say. This is against all of the rules. She was supposed to be dead to you, she was out of reach. You were supposed to be thinking of getting out yourself, not about reaching her. “Lemme talk to Rose.” Your eyes sting with maybe-tears. _God,_ you’re a pussy. (You hear the thought as a sneer, the words feel like someone towering over you and you’re flat on your back with the wind knocked out of your lungs and you’re seeing double. _Pussy._ You hate this so much right now. You hate yourself, and there’s no Rose to pull you back up out of the hole in your head.) 

Vantas doesn’t say anything, just pets your hair until Zahhak returns from the quadrant block with a number of toys that he arranges on a table. You are momentarily distracted from thoughts of Rose. There was some rope, cuffs, blindfolds, other devices. You were a little nervous about the one with knobs and branches. There were also a couple bulge shaped devices, and something like a clamp that made you want to close your legs forever. 

Vantas runs his hand down your arm. “Want to be sent out of the room, Dave?” 

“Right, let’s pretend you’re a good dom ever, and I have any choice in this,” you say. “You were using me like a goddamn bong.” 

“And here you were, earning some consideration,” Vantas says. He leans down and kisses you, and you can’t help but to kiss back. 

“Is that what that bullshit was?” 

“Answer the question, Dave,” Vantas says. 

“Stay,” you say, and your voice shakes. You should leave. You should take the opportunity provided you and abscond for whatever it was worth, but you can’t. “This is fucking bullshit,” you tell Vantas. “Earning some consideration, my ass,” you say. He laughs, and kisses you again. 

“Equius, wait til later, watch, join in?” Vantas asks. 

You startle a bit at that. It was a thing you thought might happen, but you hadn’t expected to hear it somehow. You almost want to take it back, but Vantas is spreading you out on the floor. He’s touching you, running his hands down your arms and legs, over your chest and belly. You spread your legs, wanting him to touch your inner thighs, your dick, but he avoids them. You almost forget not to beg. (Zahhak is watching and you have no idea of what to do with the dark heat that runs through you at being watched.) 

“Watch with an option to join in, sir,” he says. He hesitates. “With toys, please.” 

You lie there watching, hard and a little dizzy again as Vantas slowly gets up and selects toys from the table. Vantas uses the rope to tie Zahhak’s hands together behind his head; the rope is also looped around Zahhak’s neck and arms like a harness. (Zahhak is warned not to break the rope) More rope is used to tie his thighs to his calves, and his ankles together. The nobby device turns out to be something for the bulge to wind around, while another bit went in the nook. Zahhak whimpers as that goes in, and as Vantas guides his bulge around the branches, then turns on the vibrator. Vantas slides another vibrator into Zahhak’s waste chute, and the big troll’s entire body shakes. “Don’t break any of the ropes,” Vantas warns Zahhak in a stern voice that makes him shudder all over. In your direction, Vantas says, “Zahhak is stupid strong. The game is to keep him from breaking shit when I tie him up.” 

“Sir,” Zahhak says in a choked voice. 

“You’re doing good, Equius,” Vantas says in a reassuring tone that is both annoying and which also makes you feel jealous for some utterly insane reason. You can hear the vibrators buzzing away and when Vantas turns to you, you almost want to abscond, despite saying you’ll stay. (He’s already done all kinds of kinky shit to you though.) “Hey, come over here,” he says, pointing to a spot at his feet. 

Does he want you to walk? Does he want you to crawl? Should you be on your knees or standing? You don’t know what he wants. Previous times he just took you, pulled you into his arms, arranged you the way he wanted. Behind Vantas you can see Zahhak trembling with the effort to not move. The pheromones coming off both him and Vantas are intense. 

You get up and you walk, dizzy and trembling. The room is spinning a bit, and when you reach him, you cling. “Don’t fucking tell me how good I’m being,” you growl. He pushes you to the floor, spreads you out, kissing you. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” he says. “What should we do?” 

“Fuck me, just fuck me,” you say, squirming. 

You end up on your back, wrists cuffed to your ankles. You watch as he lubes a vibrator, spread wide for whatever Vantas decides he wants to do with it while his matesprit is watching you but has his own thing going down. “Into complicated shit, aren’t you,” you say. “Jesus fuck.” 

“I’m not nearly decadent enough, according to my moirail,” Vantas says, and slides the buzzing vibrator just behind your balls. You can’t help the noise you make, especially with the way that Vantas smiles at you. 

“Your moirail’s even more of a freak?” you ask breathlessly. “Good to know.” 

“No member of my bloodline is going to meet the expectations of the naval aristocracy,” Karkat says, amused. “Too fond of commoners and peasants.” 

“Yeah I can see that, asshole,” your voice shaky and cracked in your ears. 

He spends a lot of time using the vibrator on you, never quite hitting where you want it to. He plays you like some kind of really kinky instrument for the entertainment of his matesprit, who is whimpering and getting a little wild-eyed. The ropes he’s been tied up in are actually fucking fraying at stress points. You are riveted by the sight of Big Blue trembling and shaking, trying not to strain against the ropes. It’s almost more of a distraction than what Vantas is doing to you. You hadn’t thought Vantas had been serious about Zahhak breaking shit. Maybe it’s just weak rope? 

Vantas slipping a blue silicone bulge between your lips distracts you from thoughts of rope grades. You bite down in surprise and Zahhak actually cries out--and you hear a rope snap. Vantas laughs; you gurgle and mostly glare while he slides the thing in. It moves, but the setting isn’t high, and you can manage it without choking. The fake bulge makes you think of Vantas making you suck his bulge and you moan around it, while Vantas goes back to teasing you with the vibrator. 

Zahhak’s easy as fuck, squirming and whimpering, watching the way you play with the bulge, the way you squirm and moan while his matesprit plays with you. You might be a little easy too, just from the way everything feels hot and sexy right now and you don’t want it to stop. God, making Big Blue flush and whimper just by playing with a fake bulge does something to you. Some dark and filthy part of you that didn’t give a fuck about anything. When Vantas eventually slides the vibrator into your ass; you almost levitate, screaming through the bulge. He presses in and doesn’t let up until you’re coming. 

Vantas unties you and cleans you up a little, and you watch sleepily while he tortures Zahhak for breaking a rope. 

You get a filter and a _suppressor_ for meeting Vantas’ auspistices. (You apparently did _really good_ at meeting the matesprit. There is not enough sarcasm in the world.) You also have to dress up, and wear goddamn jewelry for the occasion. You get shoved into a stretchy black number--a one piece with a kind of full sleeved jacket that was long enough to cover your ass--with fuchsia bead-embroidery. Then you get nagged into putting on chunky gold rings set with square cut onyx and fuchsia stones, a gold bead choker, bracelets with little onyx spades, anklets with the same onyx spade motif, and fuchsia spade clip-on earrings. “I’m going to fence all of this shit the first chance I get,” you tell Vantas. “Or drop it down the nearest loadgaper.” 

“You’d have to escape first,” Vantas says cheerfully. “And if you drop the jewelry down the loadgaper, you’ll get to explore the plumbing and scrape through the sludge to find it.” 

“Fuck you, Vantas,” you growl. 

“Absolutely don’t throw it in the loadgaper,” Big Blue says. “It’s not worth the gesture. If you want to dispose of the jewelry, put them in the non-biological rubbish bin.” 

“Heart of mine, why are you giving him pointers?” Vantas asks his matesprit. 

“I’m not so much giving him pointers as saving the maintainevicerators trouble. Blockages can lead to dangerous ruptures in the reclamation system,” Big Blue says. 

You’re half asleep on the couch in Vantas’ respite block, having vague thoughts about attempting to abscond when Vantas’ auspistices arrive. One’s a teal in troll formal wear; the other’s a yellow blood in a dress uniform. There is no way of telling which is supposed to be the middle leaf because they are both bitching and talking shit at Vantas the same. (The matesprit makes a dry, teasing comment about Vantas having a surfeit of lovers in the pitch quadrant, and everyone becomes flustered. Except you. You just roll your eyes.) “I’m extremely hatable,” Vantas says. “Everyone wants my pitch regard in their direction.” 

“I certainly don’t,” Zahhak says in a tone that’s almost prim. 

“No one is actually pitch for you, KK,” the yellow blood, Sollux Captor says. “You’re still the shittiest programmer after all the work I’ve done on you to get good.”

Vantas grins. “I learned to delegate. John fixed the last few viruses you sent at my security systems.” 

“John?” Captor says, sounding affronted. “What the fuck, he’s worse than you! He fucking quotes stupid hacker heist movies!” 

“Will John be making an appearance?” the teal, Terezi Pyrope asks with hopeful interest. 

“Maybe. He doesn’t approve,” Vantas says. What the mysterious John doesn’t approve of becomes clear when both Pyrope and Vantas look in your direction. 

“Doesn’t approve but perfectly fine with workin’ for you,” you say with a sneer. 

“Mr. Egbert is one of the many human subjects of the Empire who would like to blow your face off, Mr. Strider!” Pyrope says with cheerful bloodthirst. “Not even the knowledge that you were forced into being a combatant at an early age, something humans often find upsetting moves him to platonic pity.” 

“I don’t give a fuck what a collaborator thinks about me,” you say back. 

Pyrope smiles at you, a shark grin you can’t help but find intimidating. “Aren’t you a charming little rebel,” she says sweetly. “And you have such pretty eyes. Karkles, would you mind if I borrowed him? I promise not to damage him too much.” You can’t help the shiver at the playful malice in her tone. 

“I would definitely mind,” Vantas says, giving Pyrope an irritated look. “Dinner’s in the dining room. Are you awake enough to go to dinner, Dave?” he asks. 

“Are you actually pretending you’re treating me like something other than a chew toy?” You ask. 

“Do you think we don’t know?” Pyrope asks cheerfully. “Why, there could be an entire forum where he posts videos and pictures!” 

Your stomach flips at that. The idea of being watched like that makes you a little sick, even though it’s something you know Vantas was doing. You know he was recording you; the idea of him showing what he was seeing to his quadrants takes your breath away. You’re hard and shivering with a sick sort of shame at the same time. (Some part of you likes it. Liked it the way you'd liked Zahhak watching. You didn’t leave the room and you could have. You haven’t really tried to escape since you got here what kind of sick…) “Jesus fuck.” 

“Mostly we watch for KK pretending he’s sexy,” Captor says. 

Vantas meanwhile is frowning at Pyrope, then at you. “Or we could have dinner in here,” he says, and makes the arrangements. He nudges you out of the way on the couch and pulls you into his arms, petting you. You cling and shake. 

“What the fuck, what the fuck did you do to me?” you ask. It was nuts that the most comforting person in the room was Vantas. That some part of your brain was positive Vantas was safer right now than anyone else in the room. (Okay, so this is what it feels like to have Stockholm Syndrome. You have finally lost your mind.) You’re aware of his matesprit and his auspistices finding places on the huge couch, watching you. 

“You’re freaking out a little,” Vantas says. “And Pyrope is a sack of bulges and malice.” 

“You watch me, you watch me all the time. What the fuck,” you say. 

“And I’ll keep doing it,” Vantas says. His huge palm cups the back of your head. “You liked Equius watching.” 

Equius hadn’t just watched, later. He’d played bath attendant for both of you, blue-blushing to the tips of his goddamn ears, tipsy and calf-eyed. It had been weird watching him, how much he was into it, serving Vantas and serving you. “I just. Are you going to have them do me?” you ask. “I mean, all kinds of weird shit is on the table right? Even if you pretend like I have any choice sometimes and Jesus. I don’t think I can do orgies, and you’ll all split me open. Or shit, you might really use me like some kind of bong.” 

“That seems to come up a lot,” Vantas says. “You wouldn’t happen to be having fantasies of that, would you?” 

“Nightmares, maybe,” you say. 

“You got a filter and took the suppressant,” Vantas says, like it means anything. “You want to go to your room?” It feels like a challenge, so you shake your head. 

Dinner is seafood, some kind of fish stew, an assortment of the troll version of sushi, and the human version of sushi. They’re all talking random shit, and you’re tucked up against Vantas’ side for most of it. Vantas’ quadrants get drunk, they get you drunk, and the teal interrogates you about shit you don’t really remember because you’re fucking drunk. You end up crying because you’re a pussy, and Vantas chases her off you, and then banishes his quadrants from his quarters. “You all have guest quarters, go the fuck to bed.” 

He has you all tucked up in his arms. They stumble out of his block, laughing, and the two of you are alone. You’re in his lap, drunk, and maybe also horny because you’re drunk, which isn’t much of a change from being horny and drunk because of pheromones. “Do I get to keep the goddamn filter?” you ask him. His hands are warm on your back, and you find yourself snuggling against him (you’ve been snuggling all night for fuck’s sake). 

“Maybe,” he says. “You’re aggravatingly pitiable like this,” he says. 

“Drunk, horny, freaked out?” you mumble against his chest. 

“Yes. The panic is funny, don’t get me wrong, and so is the anger, but I’m worried I might break you.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Terezi made you cry. Okay, she’s actually terrifying, but she _made you cry,_ and she wasn’t even trying for it.” 

“Wasn’t.” 

“You were crying,” Vantas says, and lifts you up so you’re kneeling in his lap. You catch hold of his shoulders as your legs spread out, straddling his legs. He pulls you in, kissing you, and you kiss back, shivering when he growls. You’re half-hard and thinking about being wrecked again. You can feel the vibration in his chest when he does that, it sends all kinds of chills through you. 

He shifts his grip on you and gets up from the couch, still carrying you. He laughs when you swear and cling. The floor is very far away and the room is spinning. Instead of carrying you to the quadrant block, he carries you out of the room and next door to yours. You cling to him, try to move against him. “Don’t go,” you tell him as he sets you down on your bed, and starts taking off the jewelry. “C’mon, this is bullshit.” 

“The only bullshit is what comes out of your mouth,” Vantas says. He strips you out of your clothes and ignores your attempts to pull him into bed. 

“I don’t need tucking in, you asshole,” you tell him blearily. 

“I’m not convinced,” he says. He touches his fingers to your mouth and you open up automatically, sucking and sliding your tongue against them. “I’m going to go visit my kisme-dumbasses.” He slides his fingers back out and you hold back the whine. 

“Called it, knew they weren’t auspistices,” you mumble. “Also calling that meeting them was beyond the pall.” 

“Nah, they would have insisted on seeing you, if you’d stayed in your room,” Vantas says. “And are you actually going, ‘wah wah they don’t like me’ at me?” 

“No. I’m drunk. Fuck you.” 

“You are totally doing that,” Vantas says, sounding amused. “You don’t have to meet my moirail yet, and it’s probably best you don’t meet John, so I’m locking you in. You have an invitation to The Unholy High Fucking Quadranting Rumpus, use it as you will,” he says, and kisses you on the forehead, before absconding.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mars being Disarmed by Venus is a painting by Jacques-Louis David


	6. ==>Dave: survive the The Inquisition Tribunal (condensed to the person of one teal troll)

The Unholy High Fucking Quadranting Rumpus is a whole board shared by Vantas’ quadrants and people close enough to make no difference to him. There’s multiple forums and sub-forums addressing all kinds of topics, not just quadrants. There’s a lot to read through while you’re locked up in your room, a lot to distract yourself with. 

It doesn’t really help. 

You keep seeing Pyrope’s blank, scarred-red eyes staring you down, asking you questions, the little camera in her lapel flashing away like a third eye. Asking specific questions about a mission to acquire resources, your first mission, you’d been pretty excited about it. (“You were robbing a bank, Mr. Strider. Why don’t you call it what it was?”) You’d been what, thirteen, fourteen? 

She’d asked questions, twisted everything around in your head. She made you tell the entire story of how your first mission went ass over teakettle. You remember someone trying to calm you down, and you don’t know who the fuck it was. It doesn’t matter because they died five minutes later. It had been a collaborator, someone working at the bank. You don’t remember what happened, you don’t. (“You said you don’t care about what collaborators think about you. Do you care that a collaborator reached out to a panicking teenager, and sought only to calm him down?”) 

You’d argued. Of course you’d argued, but she’d kept talking. Digging deep like Rose would sometimes, but she wasn’t Rose. Rose and her mother saved you; put you back together after the death of your brother. Pyrope wanted to hurt, and wasn’t satisfied until she’d ripped you open verbally. (“How many humans have you murdered, playing rebel? But oh, they’re collaborators, so killing them must be fine. And somewhere there’s a collaborator still grieving over the death of his father, whose only real crime was reaching out to you out of pale concern.”) 

“Vantas says, he says he let me get away with shit, that it was all a game,” you’d said, voice shaky. This is/was your last argument. “Why don’t you go after him for dragging things out?” 

“Little idiot, he received Imperial Censure for you,” Pyrope says. “You think that doesn’t mean anything?” 

“I don’t know,” you’d said, drunk and sick, head spinning. You’d pressed the heels of your palms against your eyes and rubbed at them, while you got teary eyed and stuffed up. “I don’t know.” 

“That pretty much doesn’t mean anything to him, Terezi,” Vantas had said, gathering you up and holding you while you shivered and tried not to look at Pyrope. (The interrogator.) 

You were still thinking about it, as much as you didn’t want to. 

After being logged on as Strider, Dave you changed your user id to one you had as a kid: turntechGodhead. Your color is red, and you’d try to change it but you aren’t actually hiding on someone’s personal server. You avoid the forums that are explicitly about sex. You lurk in what seem like safer conversations about books and movies. (You can’t get into conversations about current events, which you know is probably going to eventually drive you crazy.) 

Someone with blue text and the name user id “Ghostytrickster” is flipping out about you in a forum called “Scream Like a Wiggler” someone named “gardenGnostic” and someone in gray text named “carcinoGeneticist” are trying to calm him down, with limited success. “Ghostytrickster” turns out to be (Terezi’s? Karkat’s?) John and he’s the head of security. You only know he’s John because one of them calls him John. You have no clue who “gardenGnostic” is but you figure out “carcinoGeneticist” is Vantas pretty quickly. 

John’s initial rant is about security issues of which you are a major one. He also thinks the entire situation is something from a D/s porno he definitely hasn’t watched because he is not into that, and not a homosexual. (Someone in teal you’re pretty sure is Pyrope declares, L13S! YOU H4V3 D3F1N1T3LY S33N 1T. There’s an entire digression over whether or not John had really seen and/or liked the movie that gets moved somewhere else.) John’s feeling is that whatever weird troll emotion Vantas is feeling, he should just execute Strider. 

Vantas defends his weird troll emotions. (That occasionally gives him false positives for true hate and true pity when confronted by resistance fighters.) He is going to keep Strider, and everything will be good, and if Strider does escape or actually kill Vantas, John can be right. 

John throws a fit about this, which is where bright green text joins in. The following fits are much the same. John throws a fit, Vantas defends, green text joins in defending either gray or blue. (Darker blue makes statements of disapproval; teal and yellow pretend to be dismayed that they aren’t part of the ashenanigans.) John’s most recent pissy fit is about Pyrope. He is definitely screaming at her about last night. Pyrope does not care and laughs at him. And you understand. Realize something. 

You’d buried that. Rose helped you bury it. Your work with Roxy’s organization (which later became Rose’s organization) had been cleaner, better, more careful. Not the way Bro had done things, and that had been a relief. You’d maybe killed this guy’s dad, and he was still mad at you about it. He still wanted you dead. (You weren’t supposed to have cared about what collaborators thought of you.) You don’t know what to do about what you’re feeling. 

You send a private message: im sorry about your dad

He sends back: go to hell! 

You send: too late the devil has short nubby horns 

You send: and likes rope bondage 

He sends: of all the things i did not want to hear today that tops the list. 

He sends: what the fuck am i supposed to do with sorry? it won’t bring my dad back!

You send: i know it wasn’t supposed to go like that

He sends: you were robbing a goddamn bank how did you think it was supposed to go?

You send: i dont know 

He blocks you, you unlog from the board. It’s a day before you try logging on again.

This time, you just lurk. 

Eventually, you lurk in the sex forums. Just like Pyrope had said, there’s one Vantas has just about you, complete with recordings. The sight of the forum makes you sick and a little excited at the same time. It’s locked to only a few members. The posts go years and years back. Early posts are news clips of about your bro, news articles about missions you had been on. Security cam footage, and posts with subject titles like “THERE HE IS!” and “ONCE AGAIN MINI STRIDER MAKES AN APPEARANCE,” and one long rant about how you’d apparently evaded getting captured back when you were sixteen. (You hadn’t even known. You hadn’t even known. Were you the target? Were you why Bro got killed? Rose and Mom had always said it wasn’t, but what if it had been?) 

Later ones are articles and news feeds about you, and also about Rose. More rants about your missions and you in general. There were whole essays about “the history of human resistance.” There was also bitching about your organizations' refusal to come to the table on any issue presented. (You don't compromise on freedom.) He has notes about reports he must have gotten from whoever he had infiltrate the organization, and pictures. He has Rose tagged as “matesprit/moirail/I don’t even know they’re humans. She seems like she’d be a good moirail. Also that she needs one.” You’re most often tagged as “goddammit Strider,” and “Why am I crushing on this idiot? Oh wait, it’s because I’m also an idiot.” 

There are fantasies and all kinds of bullshit, on top of the actual notes and essays. Complete fiction and the first time you open one you close it again after about a paragraph because, _what the fuck._ He’s writing RPF of you. (Also of himself, but who the fuck cares.) There are also things that aren’t fiction. There’s Security cam footage of you inside his apartment, in your room, evidence that you have no privacy at any time. 

The next few days are quiet. You don’t hear anything past the walls of your room, and the only time the door opens are for meals. It’s a little like your first days being here, when Vantas has gone off to do whatever and left you. That this feels comforting and reassuring makes you hear Bro’s voice in your head, sneering at you for not having escaped, for not trying to escape. It gets mixed up with how Vantas asks why you haven’t. How he asks why you obeyed or didn’t obey. (Or he tells you he gave you a choice.) 

There’s something broken in your head that makes you read more of Vantas’ collection of information plus fantasies and recordings of you. You do end up reading the RPF, if only to have ammunition of some kind. (“You’re an asshole and your writing sucks.”) The RPF isn’t even all porn, which you would have expected, it’s shit like fighting and bandaging each other up afterward and going on dates in the private rooms of fancy-ass restaurants. 

There’s only two other people besides you and Vantas on that forum. One’s Big Blue, and other’s the teal, Pyrope. She’s on mostly because you were apparently one of her cases, and Vantas had to keep anything he found out about you open to her. She analyzes you in a way that makes your hands shake while holding the tablet. Vantas argues with her, or offers more to speculate about; she corrects the grammar on his fantasies. Big Blue mostly likes the fantasies and says creepy shit like, “it’s most unfortunate there was no one who took him into hand.” 

Big Blue sends you private messages. One’s apologizing for not at least attempting to dissuade Pyrope, “who is simply like that when she’s on the scent. Also she is quite scandalously allied with Egbert.” Another one is some bullshit about how you were a wild riding beast who needed to be tamed blah blah blah. 

TG: you flirting with me big blue 

CT: I’m only comparing my own training to yours. I was already broken and cruelly overburdened, Karkat and my Nepeta had to cut the harness from me and slowly retrain me. You are a more skittish, wilder thing that must be tamed before training can begin. 

TG: so thats what they call rape on your world 

TG: taming

CT: There is no excuse. Fight him if he angers you, of course, he has hated and respected you for sweeps. Fight him because he knows actions have repercussions, and you deserve repayment. But he has claimed you as his, and it will be better if you accepted it because he will not let you go. 

You log off, not bothering to respond. There’s a squeezing feeling in your chest, and the room spins. You don’t understand anything right now. You just feel sick. “It will be better if you accepted it, because he will not let you go,” sort of echoes in your head. 

The rest of it just doesn’t make sense. It’s not something that can be trusted, not from a weird kinky troll. (Vantas also being a weird kinky troll.) You curl up, retreat to the back of your head, not wanting to think about anything. The quiet gets weird now, not something you want at all now, but you can’t bring yourself to turn on some music, something to break up the quiet. A noise coming from your chest gets caught in your throat. 

You wake up, not really aware of having fallen asleep with Vantas setting up dishes on a low table surrounded by cushions. He’s wearing a short sleeved shirt that reveals his shoulders, a pair of baggie white pants and lots of very visible bruises, scrapes and hickies. “So, what we have here is meat on a stick, beans ground up in oil with spices, a dip that’s for the meat, ground up beans fried in little patties, flatbread and some kind of chopped up vegetable thing that’s either a pickle or a salad. The dip for the meat can also be used on the little patties.” 

“Wha?” 

“Equius was worried he upset you,” Vantas says. 

You kind of grunt and sit up, rubbing at your face. You wince when you hit your filter wrong. “So you grace me with you presence.” 

“Do you want to eat alone?” Vantas asks in return. 

“No.” You look at the spread, and scoot a little closer. “This is a lot of beans.” 

“It’s also delicious,” Vantas says, and fills a flatbread with little bean patties and sauce. There’s some kind of tea that doesn’t taste like Earth Tea Plants to go with the food. 

Everything is delicious, and also spicy, the dip does a good job of cooling things down though. You have no idea of what to think about the chopped vegetable thing. You poke at the remains of the meal. “That was a lot of bullshit you wrote about me,” you tell him. “You weren’t just gathering intel, you were doing some kind of freaky kismesis-thing.” That kind of collection was a staple of movies you sneaked at watching when you were a kid. (“Are you some kind of collaborator, or just a freak?”) 

“Obviously,” Vantas says. 

“And you want to fuck me so bad,” you say, voice suddenly shaking. 

“Also obviously,” Vantas says. He calls for servants to clean up. They arrive in minutes and silently remove the table but not the cushions. “What upsets you the most, I think, is having been told your resistance movement was…unpopular in many ways, and that I was using that against you. Do you think that isn’t true?” 

“The media’s controlled,” you say. “Of course we weren’t popular, people didn’t know the truth.” 

“That you were destroying valuable infrastructure and making my efforts to bring this world into the empire difficult?” Vantas asks. 

“We don’t need the empire,” you say. 

“But we’re here,” Vantas says. “And you lost. And you’re mine.” 

You shiver all over at that. “Big Blue was pretty definite about that,” you say. Vantas laughs. “I’ll have to call Equius that sometime,” he says. “My quads have fucked off again, and you’ve been in your room too long, let’s go watch a movie.” 

You follow him into the movie block. He picks a few human speculative fiction movies from the turn of the century. You’re watching him more than you’re watching the movie, and he may or may not be aware of this. You remember begging Vantas to let you see Rose, to let you talk to her. What you’d heard hadn’t been reassuring. What he’d said had been less so. Rose seducing someone, apparently a troll, and getting involved in some kind “court intrigue.” 

You imagine yourself trying on some seduction and court intrigue, and make a little noise that might be a panicky laugh. Vantas gives you an inquiring look. “Nothing. I don’t. I don’t know,” you say, shivering all over. You were so afraid for her, more afraid than for yourself, and you still didn’t know anything about your kids. (Shit. Nothing seems to happen, but it wouldn’t then, would it?) Rose was colder, and you think that maybe she’s better at the entire cut off thing than you. (You were the worst. God.) 

“‘Tryin’ on some seduction an’ court intrigue’,” Vantas says like he’s quoting. 

You said that. Out loud. “No I didn’t,” you say, it sequited, kind of. 

“It’s a good thing, you’d suck at it,” Vantas says. 

You can’t really argue with him there. Put the moves on Vantas? The idea filled your head with static. You had no moves. It was him, messing with your head, and also his pheromones messing with everything else. Even when he made it “fair” it wasn’t fair at all. You weren’t sure it was even fair right now, the both of you with filters. As unbalanced as everything is, you can’t help but say, “Nah, you’re just not worthy of having me in your grill.” 

Vantas snorts. “Shut up and watch the movie, Strider.” 

Despite how wound up you feel, you manage to doze off a bit during the second movie. Your brain is still working on worrying about Rose and sends you images of her in a bikini, strangling a fish princess with a chain and other weird shit. Vantas nudges you awake, making you jerk and flail, disoriented and a little confused. He’s got you cradled in his arms. You blink at him, fuzzy brained. 

“I’m conflicted,” he says. “On one hand, it’s clear you need to be tucked into bed like a wiggler, on the other, I missed having you on my concupiscent couch.” 

“Decisions, decisions,” you say, despite the shiver that runs through you. You are very focused on his mouth, his lips and sharp fangs. “Maybe I want to go back to sleep.” 

“Maybe I’ll let you,” Vantas says. “Eventually.” He picks you up and you squirm as he carries you into the quadrant block. 

“I hate it when you do this,” You tell him as he settles you on his concupiscent couch, closer to the wall. Vantas is looming over you, his body blocking your way to the door, one hand holding both your wrists. “I hate this so much. Fucking let me go.” 

“I don’t want to,” Vantas says. “Do you want to go to your room?” 

“We pretending I have any choice in this?” you ask him. At the same time, you feel a shameful heat run through you. You’re wearing a filter, goddamn. Vantas shouldn’t be affecting you like this. 

“Some choice,” Vantas says. He pushes your legs apart with one knee and leans in close. “You could fight me instead. What would you do if you won?” 

“Kill you,” you growl back. 

“You’d die too,” he says. 

“Worth it.” 

“You don’t want to die though,” he says, grinding his knee between your legs, spreading you wider. “Do you?” 

You arch against the pressure, close your legs around his, a whining in the back of your throat. Your dick is hard and the pants you’re wearing feel like they’re going to burst a seam. “You calling me some kind of coward: that I wouldn’t die for what I believe in?” 

“Never that,” Vantas says. He leans in for a kiss that’s all teeth; sharp points in your lips, along your throat, tongue rasping away at your skin. You have foggy memories of him kissing you like this before, when you didn’t have the filter, when you were mostly out of your mind, and when you were more clearheaded. Vantas is making these soft, satisfied sounds, and you’re answering him with little pleas and whimpers that you can’t help, arching up against him. 

You burn all over, full of shame and heat and a voice in the back of your head telling you what a freak you were for liking this, for being turned on. “Why don’t you just say I must want it because I haven’t tried anything yet then?” 

“Idiot,” Vantas says, voice weirdly fond. “Do you think I’m going to tell you what you want to hear?” 

“I don’t,” wars with “fuck you.” You stare up at him instead, brain frozen. 

“Well, maybe not want to hear,” he continues. “But you expect it. You’re waiting for it, to be mocked and degraded for your body’s reactions.” 

“Fuck you,” you say. It’s too warm, there’s a prickle of sweat all down your arms and back. It’s burning hot and you could swear the heat was coming off Vantas’ expression, from his bright pink eyes. 

Vantas grins down at you. “Maybe,” he says. “You’re mine, and I should have waited, and I have no excuse for what I did…but you’re still mine.” 

“Yeah I get that,” you say. 

“I fucked up,” he says, which sends an odd shiver through you. “I got carried away and I wanted so desperately--” 

“You got a little ahead of yourself on the ‘training program,’” you say with a sneer.

He laughs at you instead of taking offense. “Yes, I did. I owe you, and it’s clear you’re worried about your friend Rose--” 

Your stomach flips. “I won’t let you use her against me,” you tell him. 

His brows lift. “Really now.” 

“I won’t,” you repeat. 

“Idiot,” Vantas says again. “We’ll arrange a conversation anyway, and you can bravely pretend I’ll hold the ability to speak to her over your head.” He kisses you again. “Do you want to go to your room?” He asks. 

“No,” you say. You squirm against the knee pressing into your junk. “Just stop fucking with my head, for one fucking night.” 

“Can’t, that’s part of me training you,” Vantas says with a laugh. 

“I hate you so fucking much,” you say, and try to kick at him, squirm free from his grip. He lets you go, but your back is against the wall, and he’s blocking you. The quadrant block is full of a disturbing amount of toys and restraints and you can kind of remember him using a lot of them on you. You can remember all kinds of shit he’s done in this room. 

“But not ‘like that’ I know,” Vantas says. “Why don’t you want to go to your room?” 

“If you’re going to watch me anyway, there’s no point,” you say. “You’ve never done anything in the room, but you’re watching and recording. No. No privacy.” 

“Beyond my entertainment, there’s security reasons,” Vantas says. “And I worried you’d hurt yourself.” 

You can’t help the twitch, it’s like he poked you in the side. That kind of concern was bearable from Rose, unbearable from this sack of shit. “Wouldn’t have to worry if you left me alone.” 

“To your own devices? No, I think not,” Vantas says. “Also, I’d be bored, until you figured out how to blow something up, and I had to rescue you from the guards or my servants.” He curls around you. Joints and muscles do odd things under thick skin. Lying on the concupiscent couch, technically at your feet because you’re sitting hunched with your back against the wall. Not touching you, but close enough to be touched. You can feel your heart speeding up a little. 

“Are you going to fuck me, or let me go to sleep?” You ask bluntly. 

“Maybe both,” he says. “Take off your clothes and lie down.” 

You do what he says, and he pulls you against his chest. He runs his hands over you, the very tips of his claws. It makes you shiver all over, a pleasant, distracting tingle. Your arms, your sides, your chest, he touches you everywhere except your dick, which is feeling more than a little neglected. His touch wrings all kinds of noises out of you, soft little whimpers and sighs, gasps. You have to bite your tongue to keep from saying out loud what you want him to do. You are tired and you are never going to sleep. 

“I’m going to keep touching you like this,” Vantas says, sounding sleepy himself. “I love how your skin feels, the little hairs, the muscles under the skin.” You bite your lip to keep from saying, “touch my dick then.” He still seems to have heard it, because that’s what he does next. Little feather light touches that drive you out of your mind. After too much time of this, you can’t help the whine you make, pressing back against his bulge sheath. 

“Am I teasing you too much, Dave?” Vantas murmurs in you ear. He closes his hand around your dick a little more firmly and you gasp, thrusting. 

“Please,” you say. “Fuck, please.” 

He’s curled up all around you as he strokes you off, as you thrust into his fist. He cleans you both up afterward, and you fall asleep with him idly tracing the scars on your back and shoulders. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Inquisition Tribunal is a painting by Francisco Goya
> 
> I have a fanfic prompt post on dreamwidth [here.](https://othercat.dreamwidth.org/1607650.html)
> 
> You can check out my original fiction [here.](https://catchingshadows.dreamwidth.org/) I am also looking for prompts there.


	7. ==>Dave: learn The Consequences of War (which you technically already knew).

So, you find out that you are on a space ship. Somehow you had figured you were in some very secure section of the Viceroy’s Palace on Earth, but no. Instead you’re in a very secure section of Vantas’ Flagship. You don’t handle the discovery very well. 

What happens is, you do some more exploring of the apartment, going as far beyond the initial tour as you can go. Vantas is not around; he dropped you off in the breakfast room after breakfast. Eventually, you run into the security checkpoint, which is manned by a couple of olive bloods. Neither of them looks particularly dismayed or surprised to see you. Neither of them makes shitty remarks about the tight, highly decorative clothes you’re wearing. “Turn right back around, Strider,” one of them says. 

Since you are not armed, you do what you’re told, but not before you notice the door. You notice that the door is not a door at all, it’s a hatch. You realize that chances are good that you’re not on Earth anymore. This might be a goddamn spaceship you’re on and somehow that is more goddamn frightening than anything else that’s happened so far. Chills go down your spine, and you feel a sweat pop up as you head back to your room. Given a number of options, you end up opening a conversation on one of Vantas’ forums. 

turntechgodhead posting in general

Subject: am i on a goddamn spaceship

so i got as far as the security point and the door is some kind of space ship hatch instead of a door unless its really a super fucking secure section of the palace and I just thought it was a goddamn fucking ship hatch

ghostyTrickster replying to am i on a goddamn spaceship 

ehehehehehe

gardenGnostic replying to am i on a goddamn spaceship 

you’re on hic blade of harvest, the viceroy’s personal ship! did you think you were still on earth?

turntechGodhead replying to am i on a goddamn spaceship

yeah that might have been a thought i had all tricked out in himself’s personal harem in the imperial palace

gardenGnostic replying to am i on a goddamn spaceship 

surprise! you’re in the viceroy’s personal apartment on his ship. 

turntechGodhead replying to am i on a goddamn spaceship 

how the fuck

gardenGnostic replying to am i on a goddamn spaceship

you were out for a couple of hours, dummy. that’s plenty of time to get you on board the ship.

ghostyTricker replying to am i on a goddamn spaceship

wow he’s really freaking out! i guess his escape plans depended on an atmosphere! 

Alternian technology is biomechanical. All of it is partly grown. All of it is partly alive. They turn their own kind into engines. Bro gave you a healthy horror of Alternian technology. You could handle shelltops now, a little and maybe scuttlebuggies--but this was a ship. This was a ship and there was no way off it because you have no idea how to drive a shuttle, and you’d be shot down anyway if you tried. It’s a little more than you can deal with and you end up curled up with your back against the wall in the pool room, you’re not sure why. Everything gets weird and distant, the only thing holding you in place is the smell of salt water, and the stillness of the pool. (The bottom is textured triangular tiles white and beige, black and green.)

Dr. Harley finds you, while you’re trying to count the tiles. “Hey,” she says softly. “Can you hear me?”

You nod. 

“Do you know where you are?” 

You look up at her, and make a face. “Ship.” 

“Yeah, the ship. Is something upsetting you about the ship?”

“It’s made of bugs and Tommyknockers,” you tell her. 

“Tommyknockers?” The doctor asks. 

“Stephen King novel,” you say. “Spaceship with monster aliens that trick you into working for them or something with techno toys. I don’t know.” 

“Not much of a recommendation,” the doctor says. “I need you to get up and go to your room; do you think you can do that?” 

There’s a brief thought of taking her hostage but…you don’t think you can. You feel sick and shaky and you’re pretty sure Dr. Harley could kick your ass, and then you’d be in trouble. (You don’t care about being trouble, but actually you do. God. The thought of what he might do if he were actually angry with you instead of just fucking with you…It scares you a little. He could do anything to you, no one would stop him. As far as you could see, no one would care because as far as they were concerned, you’d deserve it.) You rise to your feet, and lean against the wall for a moment before heading back to your room. Dr. Harley is behind you the entire way. 

“So, what did I do, that you don’t care that much what’s going on?” You ask, when you get back to your room. You’re a little more clearheaded, though that isn’t saying much. “I mean the head of security wants me dead because I killed his dad, and you don’t seem to care what Vantas is doing, so it’s gotta be something.”

“You didn’t do anything, Mr. Strider,” Harley says. “The person responsible wasn’t you, and the person I blamed also wasn’t you.”

“Was I involved?” You ask her. She doesn’t say anything. The not saying anything tells you a lot. “So whatever it is, and who ever did it, I’m still involved, so you’re okay with what he’s doing now?” 

“Room, Mr Strider. Now,” Harley says with a suddenly hard look. Did you get her? You think you totally got her. What you were going to do with it, you didn’t know. (Get her to help you because of guilt? Drive a wedge between her and her boss? Either might work.) You retreat and the door closes and locks behind you. You sit in your chair feeling smug, like you scored or something. It was something you could maybe use against her and it burns away some more of the weird fuzz in your head that came on after you realized you were on a ship, that the sliding doors weren’t just aesthetic or whatever. 

(How do you escape from a ship though? Get a weapon; force a shuttle pilot to fly maybe. But the ship would blow you up no problem if the defense satellites didn’t. How do you get past the security door though? It wasn’t likely to be like in the movies.) 

“Your brother chopped her grandfather’s head off and posted videos of it because his organization was entering peace talks,” Vantas tells you bluntly over dinner, later in the day. “The only other living relative wasn’t a combatant by any stretch of the imagination, and I didn’t want Derek to get his hands on her so I took her into custody.” 

Your stomach turns, but you try to keep your reaction off your face. “Whoa, that’s some pretty personal information you’re slinging around. You actually have a permit for that?” Vantas raises his brows at you. “You think I don’t?” 

“Who the fuck knows,” you say. Your arms draw in to curl around your middle. “He wouldn’t have killed her,” you say. “He wouldn’t.” 

“No, he most likely would have raised her like he did you,” Vantas says. 

“Nothing wrong with the way my bro raised me,” you say, voice loud and sharp in your ears. 

“You have a back full of belt scars, some of them buckle first,” Vantas says. “Scars from defensive wounds on the hands and arms. Greenstick fractures probably from being dropped or falling from a height. How often did he make you run on broken ankles?” 

“He had to teach me how to fight no matter what,” you say, hands clenching. You want to jump right over the table and go for his throat “I had to learn to not fuck up. And what the fuck is this, pale shit?” 

“Oh, this isn’t pale,” Vantas says. “I just don’t know what to be disgusted for. Some of those scars damaged nerves; some of them have rendered you incapable of moving or stretching as easily if they’d been taken care of.” Then he says something in Alternian, weird kismesis poetry shit where a kismesis is mourning that he’ll never see his rivals true power or what the fuck ever. 

“Fuck you,” you say, voice shaking. 

“Your brother told you he had to be hard on you, didn’t he?” Vantas says, almost sympathetic. “A Strider lost the war so you had to make up for it, right? He had to toughen you up so you wouldn’t fail fighting me in battle the way your Ancestor did.”

“At least he died in battle,” you say.

“I’ve always regretted that,” Vantas says. 

“What, you wanted in his pants too?” you ask flippantly. 

“I wanted to talk to him, maybe have him sent to my Ancestor as a representative of the dissident factions of this world,” he says. “Instead, he died and I never got the chance.” 

“Representative, or trophy?” you scoff. “Did you hate him too? Your Ancestor get first pick of all the booty?” 

“Representative,” Vantas says, tone mild. “My Ancestor always wants to talk to the dissident factions of the worlds we conquer. It assists with the integration process. I didn’t hate your great grandfather. He was an intelligent man who fought on various fronts during the initial conquest. His propagandist efforts are currently undergoing study, as well as the strategy of his initial organization.” 

“Yeah, I’m hearing you say you wanted him to be your rival, but it never happened,” you say. You try not to feel that weird little twist of surprised pride that your namesake’s films were apparently a big deal to the trolls. (Your Bro had been so gone for the films. Made you watch them when you were a kid and pointed out all the symbolism crap to you.) “So you’ll fuck around with his namesake instead, because Ancestor bullshit. You don’t respect me, I’m your goddamn chew toy.”

“I said I didn’t hate him,” Vantas says. “And what I feel has nothing to do with Ancestor bullshit. I really don’t have much of the awe one might have for Ancestors, given I was raised by mine.” 

“What about my Bro?” You ask. “Half the time you sound more pitch or what the fuck ever at my fucking brother than me.” 

Vantas gives you a look. “As you so often say, I never hated him like that. I just wanted to kill him because he ruined everything he touched.” He signals for the servants to clear the table and stands up. “Take off the filter,” he orders calmly. 

You shiver all over. Without even thinking about it, your hand goes up to the filter tube. You hesitate, you think about telling him to go to hell. You’re also thinking of him touching you, of not having to think, just move where he puts you, how he wants you. You take the filter out, and are handed a napkin before you can wipe your nose off on your sleeve. He calls you over to him and kisses you, then herds you out of the dining room, into his respite block. His hand on his back feels warm and familiar; his scent is slowly sinking into you, making you feel dizzy and needy. 

As the door shuts behind him, he pulls you into his arms. “The talk is arranged for tomorrow. Don’t expect to get too much past us, though you’re welcome to try.” 

“Talk entirely in code, got it,” you say, leaning into him. He’s so big you don’t know what to do, almost. You could give him a blow job bending over at the waist, is what you’re trying to say. He can carry you on his hip and your feet would be barely dangling off the floor. Things even up when he’s sitting or lying down, but not by much. 

You feel his bulge sheath beneath the fabric of his pants, and rub, slide down where his nook would be. It’s damp, and Vantas’ thighs tremble around your hand in a way that makes you want to wrap your hand around your dick and jerk off. His eyes are burning down on you. “Proactive,” he says. “I like it.” 

You shiver all over, and your face burns. He has you take his clothes off, and directs you where to hang them up. You feel absolutely no advantage when he’s naked and his bulge is twisting and curling out of its sheath. “Can I suck it?” you ask, brain mouth filter suffering a critical meltdown. 

Vantas touches himself, and his bulge winds around his hand. “I don’t know, should I let you?” It’s almost teasing, it was the way he’d talked to Zahhak. 

“You made me suck you off, before,” you say. “I’ve eaten you out.” 

“This is different,” Vantas says, still in the teasing tone. “If you’re asking for it as if you think you’re worthy of it.” 

“I’m horny,” you say, shivering. “Of course I’m asking for it.” You can’t think of anything except Vantas’ winding bright pink tentadick, the gentle fanning of his weird ear fins, the way he’s just standing there hip cocked. You hear the rest of what he’s saying. “Oh, weird kink game.” 

“Weird kink game,” Vantas says. “Strip, fold your clothes and kneel in the middle of the floor.” 

“What if I say no?” you ask. 

“Well, you get to sit there and watch me fuck myself with my own bulge,” Vantas says. “Then you go back to your room.” You did not make the noise you just did, a soft little whimper whine. Still, you begin to undress yourself, and Vantas absconds into the quadrant block. After folding your clothes, you kneel in the middle of the room, hands clasped behind your head. It starts becoming a little uncomfortable before Vantas reappears, sans his filter. He gives you an approving smile and you have no idea of how the fuck to feel about it. 

You have considerably less approval for the thing he’s brought into the sitting room with him. “I am not getting in that,” you tell him. It’s a chair…kind of. Like the low rocking chairs for playing video games with extra...parts There’s straps for the arms and legs, all bright fuchsia pink and a dildo attached to some kind of motor dial thing. 

“Yes you are. It’s really very comfortable.” 

“Fuck no,” you say. “If this was something I babbled about while you were doing me, you shouldn’t listen to anything I say while I’m getting fucked.” 

“You do talk a lot of bullshit,” Vantas agrees. “I guess I’ll just be entertaining myself then,” he says, and settles into the rocker. “Stay right where you are,” he says. 

“I have no problem with that,” you tell him. “You are not irresistibly sexy, even without the filter.” 

“That’s why you whined at the thought of not getting to suck my bulge, all is clear,” Vantas says. 

“Fuck. You.” 

“You don’t get to, that’s the point,” Vantas says. 

Vantas’ legs are spread out, heels on the stirrups of the rocker, like he doesn’t give a damn that you’re kneeling not a couple paces away. He plays with his bulge, stroking and twisting his hand around it from base to tip. He’s purring while he smiles at you, bright sharp teeth against the dark of his face, and the bright fuchsia of his eyes that almost seem to glow. You can’t look away. 

“Stay right where you are, Strider,” he tells you. “Don’t move.” 

“Still not irresistibly sexy,” you say. 

It starts becoming a lie. You’re completely focused on him. On his hands and his bulge and his thighs. Vantas plays with himself, head tilted against the back, then sets his hands on the arms of the rocker, letting his bulge slide and tease at the seam of his nook. His pheromones already had you needy and wanting, his arousal, the way he was teasing himself, putting on a show while pretending he was ignoring you, makes your mouth water. Vantas opens himself up and moans, pushing back against the chair, like he’s trying to get away from his own bulge, like he was sensitive and the feeling was too much for him. 

The sound goes right to your head; it goes right to your dick. Your fingers twist behind your head, your hands shake. You’re hard, and the heavy lidded, challenging look Vantas is giving you is driving you right out of your mind. _Kinky sex games._ This is more somehow than anything that’s been done before. You’re not just tied up now. He’s not just moving you how he wants you. You could get up and kick him in the junk right now. (You want to get up and kick him in the junk. You also want to crawl between his legs and not come up for air until you hear him scream.) 

“Don’t move,” Vantas says sharply, and you freeze. (You realize you started to move.) “Put your hands back up behind your head.” (You hadn’t noticed that you’d dropped them.) 

The order sends shudders all through you, and an impulse to obey. (Are you afraid? Are you afraid of him? Is he may be afraid of you for once? You don’t know. You can’t tell.) “Is it one or the other, asshole?” You manage to say, feeling breathless and a little dizzy. 

“Put your hands up, and stay where you are,” Vantas says. His voice is commanding, but also a little hazy. His fins are doing a lazy sort of wave, like he’s trying to fan more of his pheromones in your direction. His bulge meanwhile does some kind of reflexive twist as it goes deeper into him and he makes this _noise._ He makes this vibrating note that doesn’t sound anything like his usual scratchy baritone. It’s a sound that hits the base of your spine and rattles your teeth, almost. 

It vibrates all through you, and you don’t think you could stop if you wanted to. You scramble forward, between his splayed legs and you kiss him hard and dizzy-making. Vantas is making some kind of protest, but you don’t care. This is you getting your own back. (This is you wanting that sound again. Fuck.) “Make the humpback noise again,” you tell him. “Holy fuck.” 

“What the fuck, no,” Vantas says, breathless from your kiss. “The hell is a humpback?” 

“It’s a whale,” you say, dizzy and drunk. “You made a whale noise. Do it again.” 

“I do not make whale noises,” Vantas says. “Get off me.” 

“You just did,” you tell him. You slide your hand down to where his bulge is getting frisky with his nook. It’s hot and wet down there, and Vantas makes a stifled moan at what you’re doing. Your dick really likes that sound. “Make the noise again.” 

“You’re turned on by immense sea mammal voices?” Vantas asks with a sort of laughing outrage. “And think I’m the kinky one?” 

“I’m going to mix it and make it your goddamn ringtone,” you tell him, threaten him, voice shaking. “I’ll have it played at fucking sportball stadiums.” 

Vantas shudders underneath you. “Shit,” he says, giving you a wild-eyed look. It’s like you got him his birthday present early, the look he gives you. 

You kiss him again, angry and turned on, and angry that he’s turned on. That he’s pitch for you and he decided he was going to keep you. That was truly some kismesis-type bullshit you were telling him, and he’s getting off on how angry you are, on your threats and how drunk he was probably getting on your pheromones. (Like you were getting drunk off of him.) Fuck. Fuck him. Fuck him and the horrible bug-spaceship he sailed in on. 

You are so desperate for him and you are so angry about it. 

You slide down between his legs, mouthing at his bulge which is still buried in his nook. Vantas whines and moan, turning and twisting a bit in the rocker. (He’s so much bigger than you, but he folds. All the fight just goes out of him.) You coax his bulge out and it slides out along your cheek and neck as you go for his nook. His thighs squeeze hard all around you when he comes. He shudders and clenches with a whimper, not more than a trickle coming out. It isn’t enough, you want him to lose it. (You want him to make that sound again.) 

“Spill!” You scream at him as he tries to push you away. You grab on tight to him. “C’mon, spill on me, I’m your pitch toy, right?” 

“Fuck you,” he gasps at you, and spreads you out on the floor, even though you flail and kick and scream. He puts the edge of his hand to your mouth like the world’s shittiest gag and you bite hard until your jaws ache. Then there is blood in your mouth and it’s disgusting and thick and absolutely nasty. Vantas looks stupidly triumphant as he drips bright thick fuchsia all over you. “There. I spilled,” he says breathless as he gets up and you spit the already coagulating shit out of your mouth. He absconds to the ablution block and there is nothing to throw at the son of a bitch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Consequences of War is a painting by Peter Paul Rubens


	8. ==>Dave: Discover an Allegory of Good and Bad Government

While Vantas is cleaning himself up from being bitten, you put on your pants and clean yourself up with your shirt before absconding. You are shaky, still hard, and angry enough still that you haven’t quite considered how much trouble you might be in. the when you encounter a servant in the hallway, the first thing you do is try to hide your bloody shirt behind you. Then you bring it back in front of you for different reasons. Their eyes widen a bit, seeing the blood, but they don’t seem very concerned for whatever you might have done to Vantas. They take the shirt from you, and you duck into your room.

Once in your room, you wash your mouth out a dozen times until the nasty taste of Vantas’ blood is gone. (It does not completely fade.) Then you take the hottest shower that you can manage, letting the water pound away at you. “Asshole,” you mutter. You can still feel how hard Vantas’ hand had been, the not quite crunch as your teeth broke through the tough not-quite- skin. You can also taste how absolutely nasty Vantas’ blood had tasted, so any satisfaction you might have gotten from putting a dent into Vantas is pretty much dimmed by that, yeah. 

Sleep mostly does not happen that day. There’s some worry that Vantas’ is going use biting him as an excuse to “punish” you, which leads to some interesting dreams. Then you spend time wondering if he’s really going to let you talk to Rose, and then there’s the entire thing where he is fucking with your head about how Bro treated you. 

You do a lot of thinking about how he went into, places only Rose was ever allowed to go. (You know Rose wouldn’t have said anything about what she knew.) You think he’s basing what he knows off of the scars, the damage from what Bro put you through to “toughen you up,” when you were a kid. He might even know from whatever spies had been in the organization you put together with Rose after her mother had died. 

In the evening Vantas comes in with breakfast and your shirt which has been cleaned and pressed and now has a pattern of fuchsia flames across the front and back. “What do you think?” Vantas asks. 

“That it’s creepy that you’re giving me a shirt that may or may not have your blood on it,” you say. 

“Mostly my blood, extracted and added to fuchsia ink,” Vantas says, amused. “It’s a shame human blood isn’t colorfast. Fresh human blood is almost imperial red.”

“Again, creepy.”

“You don’t have to wear it,” Vantas says.

“But you obviously want me to, for creepy weird pitch reasons.” 

“Well, yes. Do you want to argue, or do you want to eat breakfast?” 

Breakfast is blackberry crepes with whipped cream, more like a dessert than a breakfast, and coffee. You keep glancing at his bandaged hand. He keeps smiling at you and not saying a damn thing about what happened the day before. You don’t want to say you’re rattled, but you’re rattled. 

After breakfast he walks you to his office and sits you down in the chair at his desk. Then he cuffs you to the damn chair to keep you ‘out of trouble.’ “What kind of trouble do you imagine I’d get up to?” 

“I can think of a few off the top of my head, most of them involving sabotage,” Vantas says. “Your conference should start in about five minutes.”

In about that amount of time, the screen goes active and Rose appears. She looks tired but very put together. If there are burn scars, you can’t really see them. She’s cuffed to an office chair like you, in an office with a lot of potted alien plants. Somehow, you’re relieved to see she’s wearing a filter, though that could have been something they just gave her, before cuffing her in place. “Hey,” you say, and your voice creaks dangerously. 

“Hello Dave,” Rose says. “It’s good to see you.” 

“Likewise,” you tell her. “I’m…kind of shit at the ‘if captured they’re good as dead’ thing.” She smiles. “I know. I’m a little far away for any rescue attempts. I’m not even sure where I am.” 

“Are they…are you doing okay?” you ask her. There isn’t anything you can do if she isn’t, but you can’t help asking. 

“I’m fine,” Rose says. “I’m more worried about you.” 

“I’m awesome,” you tell her. “I am totally doing a femme fatale number on the Viceroy.” She probably isn’t very convinced; your voice is shaking a little. More than a little, really.

“I’m sure you are,” Rose says. No, she definitely isn’t convinced. You can tell just from the absolutely one hundred percent fake sincerity in her tone. 

You talk and send each other little code phrases that mean you’re all right, really. Neither of you really believe the other on how well you’re doing. She confirms that she’d been pulled out of the house half dead. Alternian medical science had been able to save her life. She tells you about Heiress Feferi, who is apparently being trained in something called Post Ascension Fleet Education and Assignment. “It seemed very strange that an ‘Heiress’ would be trained to be a glorified high school principal,” Rose says. “She said something along the lines of no; she was at least the president of a community college at this point when I mentioned it.”

“Huh. Big Blue said you were in the middle of some kind of political thing,” you say. “Made it sound like you were doing all kind of secret agent shit.” 

Rose smiles at you. “Feferi also has an extensive ‘court’ that has nothing to do with her academic training or career. These are mostly quadrants and other relationships that she shares with Vantas. From what I’ve seen they are also an important part of the Imperial government. Most of the Heirs work in the Imperial government in some sense. I’m attempting to figure out how it all works.”

You desperately want to ask her, “is she hurting you? Are you really okay?” You’re pretty sure Rose would lie to you if she wasn’t okay. “So, what’s the Heiress like?” “Very bubbly and sweet, until she isn’t. I am beginning to understand why you hate my ‘digging into your brain’ so much,” Rose says, making a face.

“Kinda starting to miss it,” you tell her.

“Oh? Then how is Vantas treating you, really?” Rose asks. Her hands are gripping hard on the arms of the chair. She wants to come right through the screen, you can tell. 

You swallow. “I don’t miss it that much,” you tell her. “I can handle it.”

She also answers the question you desperately didn’t want to ask when she asks if you’ve been _allowed_ to see Dirk. Your stomach flips a little, because Dirk. They have him. They have your kids. “No I haven’t. What about Roxy, is she--?”

“Roxy’s fine,” Rose says hurriedly. “At least as far as I know. Peixes’ secretormenter is apparently an ‘Uncloistered’ Jade, and was naturally assigned with babysitting her, which seems a bit unfair since uncloistered Jades are uncloistered because they are ambivalent about childcare. I haven’t been allowed to see her.”

“No one’s told me anything about Dirk,” you tell her, and she frowns. 

“I was told almost immediately. I think they felt that they didn’t want to interfere with any ‘lusus bonds,’ though that wouldn’t explain why they wouldn’t have told you about Dirk.” 

“Yeah, it would,” you say. “I mean, there’s a reason we decided you’re the ‘primary caregiver’ right? I can’t be trusted with a kid.” 

“I trust you with our kids you jackass,” Rose tells you. “Roxy and Dirk adore you.” She gives you a glare that clearly says, _“you aren’t your brother, idiot.”_

“They’re four. I adored my Bro when I was four. Anyway if they didn’t tell me, they either don’t have Dirk, or they don’t think I have a ‘lusus’ bond.”

“We do have Dirk,” Vantas says coming back into the office. “I don’t trust you not to do something stupid. You would die and I would be angry and the wiggler would be sad so I decided to let Ms. Lalonde break it to you.” 

“If I’d known I was going to be the bearer of ambivalent news, I would have liked to have been told,” Rose says with one hundred percent fake congeniality, just before a Jade troll comes into the other office. “Looks like this is the end of our call. I hope to hear from you again,” Rose says in her real voice. She’s giving you a look of extreme concern. (This is almost the same as the look she gives you when she wants to take your brain apart. God, you miss her.)

“Yeah, me too.” 

Rose’s image freezes as the Jade troll disconnects. Then Vantas does it from your end. 

“When were you going to tell me about my kid?” you ask, glaring up at Vantas. 

“Whenever you decided to stop pretending you had any secrets from me,” Vantas says. “That didn’t seem likely, and you were driving yourself crazy, so I decided to do the big reveal: your wiggler is safe.” 

“Where’s my kid? What are you doing to him?” 

“Somewhere on the ship, insisting on a 14:00 nap and a 20:00 bedtime.”

“What _else_ are you doing?”

“I do have experience with wigglers,” Vantas says. “He isn’t being harmed, and I managed to win him over pretty quickly.”

“I really want to hear about you grooming my kid for whatever shitty plans you have to use him against me,” you tell him. 

“He isn’t being harmed,” Vantas repeats, as if repetition is going to make you believe it eventually. “And I’m not going to use him against you. I’m not even going to dangle him like a root vegetable in front of a packbeast in hopes of getting good behavior.”

He uncuffs you from the chair, and you move away from him, the chair and the desk. He follows your movement, watching you carefully. “But that doesn’t mean you’ll let me escape and take my kid with me.” Not that you can do that right now since spaceship. 

“No, no it doesn’t. If you try to escape, I’ll have to kill you.” He motions for you to proceed him out the door, and you exit the office quickly. He follows and door swishes shut behind him. “The wiggler doesn’t need the additional trauma after having a burning house fall on him.” 

“So what, I don’t see us playing happy families here,” you say. Then, as you take in ‘having a burning house fall on him’ you ask, “how badly was he hurt?” 

“Not as badly as Lalonde,” Vantas says. “She was able to shield them from any major burns. The wigglers mostly had damage from inhaling smoke and fumes.” 

He heads for the movie room, and you follow him. He lets you watch videos of him talking to Dirk. (“Your mommy and your sister are going to live with my sister, for a while. Your daddy is living with me.”) Dirk’s wary at first, but slowly gets friendlier. (“Living with me,” Jesus Christ. That was a euphemism.) They play little kid board games and computer games. Dirk has a couple of human nannies and they treat him okay from what you see. It’s upsetting, even though they don’t say anything bad about you or Rose.

“So the kids aren’t being held over our heads, why can’t we see them?” 

“Because right now, we can’t trust you not to be stupid,” Vantas says. He kisses you, and it’s kind of a whiplash. Talking about your kids, about not being told whether they were even alive (a small voice points out that you did your best to not even think about asking) to sharp kisses that are more like nips and bites along your throat. 

You moan because you can’t help it, tilting your chin to show your throat. His tongue rasps against your skin and you shiver as it stings. You stifle a whimper. “You have no secrets from me,” Vantas murmurs in your ear.

“No mystery left in this relationship,” you gasp. 

He laughs and moves away as you try to kick him, then catches hold of you, and drags you to your respite block. After dropping you on your bed, he absconds, locking the damn door. 

It’s a few days before you see him again in person. He texts and leaves you messages on the forum. Vantas’ moirail turns up on the forum and is kind of a tool. Ampora is some kind of amateur historian and asks you lots of questions, then bitches about it when you ignore him. Publically. He actually starts a thread telling Vantas to “make your concubine talk to me about his history, Vantas.” To your surprise, Doctor Harley, Zahhak and someone with olive text jumps on him about it. Then he whines a bit about that (it’s apparently a terrible act of “quadrant smearing.”) until Vantas tells him to knock it off. 

John unblocks you long enough to threaten to beat the shit out of you if you ever bite Vantas again. 

TG: come and try it po po

TG: im shaking in my shoes like oh no

TG: some fuck with a badge

TG: thinks he runs this show

TG: tell me what to do where to go

GT: oh my god are you seriously trying to rap at me? or hey maybe you’re doing one of those troll slam duels!

GT: wow someone’s assimilated! :B

TG: fuck you egbert

TG. seriously

TG: blow

TG: me

TG: hes up my ass and in my grill 24/7

TG: im supposed to be his pitch thing why shouldnt i bite the shit out of him when i get a chance.

GT: because if you bite him again ill kick your ass!

TG: and if he bites me that’s okay right because hes the boss and your tongue is up his ass.

He blocks you again, after an impressive keysmash. 

You’ve been allowed a newsfeed, but it’s dated by weeks, maybe longer. It’s enough information to catch you up on the final trials and sentences for your people, but nothing more current than that. A lot of people you know face to face or at least by reputation get sent to prison, sometimes even offworld. Some of them are getting “re-educated,” and what that might mean is still pretty terrifying to you, because all that comes to mind is some kind of telepathic zombification ray. 

There’s a lot to think about. Mostly if he’s somehow managed to break you; the fight isn’t going out of you, you want to fight him. You want to scream and rage at him for knowing shit he has no right to. You’re afraid for your little boy and don’t believe Vantas won’t use him against you. You hear him saying, “there isn’t anything you can hide from me,” in your dreams. You hear him saying, “I don’t want to kill you,” over and over again. He gets mixed up in weird ways with your nightmares; He’s a troll prisoner your Bro was working on while showing you how to do interrogations. He’s a teal whose throat you slit against your brother’s orders. (You claimed you’d been mind-controlled. You’d gotten one of the worst beatings of your life for that one.) Sometimes he’s your Bro and you’re flying through space on a little asteroid world like something from _The Little Prince._

You think he’s maybe broken you because you’ve been soaking up what he’s been doing to you. You fight, and it never seems good enough, and then Vantas touches you almost gentle and you fall apart. You argue and he says he admires you. Your brain is in a complete fog, and you don’t know what to do about it, about him. (You think Rose would mention your tendency for self-destructive behavior.) You go through the list of “how compromised am I?” Just to make sure he hasn’t somehow completely brainwashed you. 

When he comes back, you can see he has capital P Plans for you. He’s currently wearing a filter, but you’re not sure how long that’ll last. He comes into your room with some pretty extensive “jewelry.” The jewelry includes gold chains, a gold collar with black enamel and rings in the front and back, wrist and ankle cuffs, a blind fold. You stare at the “jewelry” and then back at him. You really, really wish your brain hadn’t dropped down into your dick because all you could think about was Vantas putting all that on you, then making you scream for it. There is just enough blood in your face that you feel your skin heat with a blush. “Holy shit.”

Vantas laughs at you. “Lie down on your stomach with your hands behind your back,” he says, indicating your bed.

“We’ve never done anything in here,” you say. The room had been neutral territory, more or less until now. Was that going to change now? Was this the punishment Vantas had been gearing up to? “Except maybe the voyeuristic bullshit.”

“We aren’t going to,” Vantas says. “And the voyeuristic bullshit was at least partly because I needed to know you weren’t going to do anything stupid.” 

“If you think I’m all fragile and shit, maybe you should stop fucking with me,” you tell him. Vantas pretends to think about it. “Nah. Also, I don’t think you’re fragile.” He steps closer to you, like he’s trying to herd you toward the bed. You manage to stand your ground. “Cracked but the bits are welded together. Still strong for all you’ve been through.” 

“You’re one of the things I’ve been through,” you tell him. “So you don’t get to fucking praise me for it.”

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding very sorry about anything. “You don’t get to decide what I find admirable.” 

“If this is how you treat someone you admire, I’d hate to see how you’d treat someone you don’t,” you grumble.

“Well, I also find you aggravating and detestable,” he says. “And concerning.”

“Concerning, huh?” you ask. 

“You were very upset about the realization of being on my Flagship. I did a review of the book you mentioned to Doctor Harley, conferred with my auspistice and decided you needed a field trip to the helmsblock.” 

“Which is why the very fancy chains,” you say. 

“Which is why the very fancy chains,” Vantas says. He pushes you back onto the bed. It startles you when you land on the bed, and you reflexively struggle as he flips you onto your front. For a moment, he pins you until you go still, then he slides the collar into place, buckling it firmly around your throat. You swallow, and it’s very present. He lets you keep your filter.

Next are the wrist and ankle cuffs. The cuffs are smooth and padded on the inside, and heavy as fuck. He chains your ankles together, then chains your wrists to the loop in the back of the collar. He pulls you up into a sitting position on the bed, and adds the blindfold. “Can you see anything?” he asks, and you get the sense he’s waving something—probably his hand--in front of your face. All you see is a line of light at the bottom edge of the mask. You can also feel a slight shift of air in front of your face. 

“Nope, guess I’m ready for my walkies,” you tell him. 

Vantas snorts “Believe it or not, the chains are not my fault this time.”

“You mean if I just behaved myself like a good little concubine you wouldn’t have to?”

“No, I mean no one wants you unrestrained outside my quarters just yet, Or possibly at all,” Vantas says. “Technically they also don’t want you unrestrained inside my quarters. Or in my quarters.” 

“Maybe you should listen to advice you’re given,” you tell him. “Not a fan of being in the lap of luxury, when it’s your lap.” 

Vantas doesn’t reply to that, just takes you by the arm and guides you out of the room and through the suite. You follow along. “So these are the ultra-romantic pitch chains. Does big blue have jewelry like this, only with red enamel?” 

“Fuchsia actually,” Vantas says.

“What’s his deal?” 

“What do you mean?” Vantas asks. “Is he bothering you?” 

“Do you actually care that he might be?” You ask. “He talks like you rescued him or some shit, apparently with your bulge, so what’s his deal?” 

Vantas laughs. “Equius…had problems. Most of them caste related, some of them…not. The caste related problem had to do with the old expectations for his caste, and how he thought he should fulfill them. He also has very high anxiety, and his motor skills development couldn’t keep up with his size or strength. It’s a correctable problem, with physical therapy but it was hard for him to seek help. His moirail and I have been working on him for sweeps. We’re very proud of what he’s been able to accomplish.” 

He herds you past the checkpoint and into the corridor, which is completely quiet except for the whoosh of vents. So is the next one, all the way to the elevator, and so on. “So where is everyone?” you ask as you come out into another corridor which is again, empty. “Am I big secret or something?” 

“Did you particularly want to be paraded around in chains?” Vantas asks. 

“I dunno, figured it went with the territory,” you say. “Since that’s how I met big blue.” 

“I’m in enough trouble,” Vantas says. “I don’t need to have my idiot brother lecturing me about involving unquadranted crewmembers in my quadrant interactions against their consent.” 

This isn’t the first time you’ve heard mention of his being in trouble. You don’t pursue it, instead asking, “this is a quadrant interaction? Thought you were taking me to the helmsblock. Or were you going to take me in the helmsblock? Gross.” You imagine having sex in the middle of a fuchsia hentai tentacle forest. You think about the vids you’ve seen, old troll horror movies about helmsman who snap and destroy their ships and everyone in it. You imagine being in the same room as that kind of malice and bodyhorror and it’s not as funny as you want to make it sound. 

Vantas snorts. “It’s a quadrant interaction.” 

“Yeah but I’m not in your quadrants,” you tell him, trying to recover from your train of thought. 

A few more levels and twists and turns that you think have more to do with keeping you confused than with actually getting you to the “helmsblock” you both come to a stop. He’s taken you past what you were pretty sure was a larger room, with humming machineries that made your hair stand on end. He takes off your blindfold and you blink at the light. You start to turn around, wanting to get a look at the room behind you, but Vantas stops you. “Behind you are helmstech stations and engineering,” he says. 

“And I can’t take a look?” 

“Some humans tend to be unsettled by Alternian hive servers,” Karkat says. “And you almost went catatonic because of ‘tommyknockers’.” 

Hive servers. _Literally_ humming. Christ. “I wasn’t fucking catatonic,” you say, and start to shake his hand off. 

“Are you two going to hatemack right at my front door or come inside?” A voice you recognize comes through the speaker. Captor, that was Captor, Vantas’ auspistice. 

You make a strangled sort of noise, ice dripping down your spine. “What the fuck,” you manage. In the vids your brother had shown you, helmsman were grown into the ships they were forced to fly. Their limbs were amputated and they were constantly screaming. What you had been shown had been peak body horror, the vids had given you nightmares as a kid. Captor had all of his limbs, and had definitely been ambulatory. Prosthetics, maybe? You don’t know. “You turned your boyfriend into a battery?”

Vantas ignores you, or pretends to. “That depends are you going to open the door or talk through it?” 

The door slides open, revealing a dimly lit room. A lot of the light is coming from banks of monitors and blinking lights against one wall, some of it is from fungus track lighting. There’s biowire growing everywhere like vines, leading to the main trunk, which you guess is probably the helmscolumn, except it’s not like in the vids. Captor’s sitting in some kind of bulbous recliner thing growing (?) from the column. His eyes are closed, he’s wearing a filter, and his head is encased in some kind of clear gelatinous mass. Just looking at it makes you feel like you’re suffocating.

“Give me a couple minutes,” Captor’s voice says via the intercom. At the same time, you can see his lips move. “Have a seat while I disconnect.”

“You mean while you get to a save point in your game,” Vantas says amiably. He guides you over to a squashy, shapeless yellow couch that clashes horribly with everything and gets you to sit. “So that’s the helmscolumn. Captor has control of the ship’s navigation and motive systems,” Vantas explains. “He monitors security and maintenance feeds and is a complete dick to his entire staff.” 

“Only when they fuck up, which is most of the time,” Captor says. The mass surrounding his head peels back and sink into the chair. Next, he pushes the foot rest in, and sits up straight. You hear a weird, almost Velcro ripping sound as he pulls away from the chair, and slowly gets up. He stretches and rubs the back of his neck. He blinks at you, for a moment before saying, “KK why the fuck is Strider wearing the goddamn replicas the king from _A Beautiful Cerulean from Alternia is Kidnapped to the Fantastical Counter-Alternia Where He Is Coerced Into Being the Body Double For An Evil King Seeking To Escape the Vengeance of a Rebellion. Featuring Whipping, Ritual Submission, Ritual Dominance and Assumption of inherent Dominance of a Specific Gender Various Acts of Violence And Minor Obsessions With The Growth and Strength Properties of Troll Hair_ wore at the end after having been captured by Carle Tabote?” 

“Why do you think?” Vantas asks with a sigh. 

Sollux snorts a laugh, and pulls his glasses out of his uniform pocket, sliding them onto his face. “Want me to talk to her?” 

“No,” Vantas says.

You listen in on this interplay, actively trying to focus on it, instead of the room and biowire. It’s as luridly pink and disturbing as it had been in the vids, even if the helmscolumn was…different You’re guessing ‘she’ might be the other auspistice. Pyrope. “I thought I was wearing chains because I was a scary rebel who couldn’t be trusted, not because you wanted to get your roleplay on,” you mumble. 

“I have absolutely no interest in that franchise,” Vantas says. “I wouldn’t roleplay that stupid movie even if Equius gave me the biggest damn barkbeast eyes ever. Don’t worry, you’re very scary and very dangerous.”

“Fuck you.” 

Captor rolls his eyes. You’re pretty sure he does. His eyes are red and blue lights, so it’s hard to tell. But you are sure he’s rolling them at the both of you. He goes over to a minifridge and gets himself an energy drink before sitting on the other end of the couch, book ending you with Vantas. “So, what level of ignorance am I working with here? Generalized xenophobia? Misunderstanding of biotechnology?” Captor asks. He opens his can and takes a drink. 

You don’t want to answer that. You don’t much want to talk. “Don’t see how I can misunderstand ‘dude uses his boyfriend as a battery,’” you say. 

“I’d say mild phobia of biotech,” Vantas says. “Maybe more than ‘mild,’ if the reaction was anything to go by.” 

“Fuck you,” you say again, not looking at either of them. 

Captor takes a drink of his energy drink before asking, “okay, how much do you know about helmsmen?” 

“They’re psionic trolls that get permanently strapped into spaceships to be batteries,” you say. 

“Eh. Not inaccurate,” Captor says. “Last of the permanent installations were completely phased out centuries ago. Newer models rely on kinetic reservoir couches. Port technology currently only needs one port, back of the neck, plus some microneedles along the spine.”

“What was the thing, over your head?” You can’t help but ask. 

“Not a good English translation for it,” Captor says with a smirk. “Headset might be closest. It connects me to the ship’s systems. And my ‘boyfriend’ didn’t ‘strap me in.’ Someone has to be there laugh at him when he fucks up, and that someone is me.” 

Vantas snorts. “Still say you went in for helmstraining because your Ancestor thought you’d be better in programming.” 

“I’m a fucking genius, I can do both,” Captor says. “I fucking _am_ doing both. Just because _he_ has a helming phobia--”

“Well earned,” Vantas points out. 

“Yeah, fuck that guy anyway,” Sollux says, though at the same time it sounds like he’s agreeing with Vantas. He tilts his head a bit, studying. “So, where did you get your information about helmsmen?” 

“Dunno. Bro showed me movies,” you say and shrug. “Biotech is already pretty creepy. It twists everything up into weird shit it shouldn’t be. Like computers and cars and even fucking washing machines. Trolls even do it to their own kind, turning ‘em into batteries and computers. In the movies the trolls were always screaming in pain and thrashing around like they were being electrocuted. This whole ship is alive or bits of it are, all twisted up and wrong. Turned into shit it wasn’t meant to be by people who don’t give a fuck as long as they get what they want. If they do that to their own people what do you think they’ll do to us? It’d be worse than slavery, they could do anything. Turn us into toys. Turn us into tools. They can already turn us into panting bitches and that wasn’t even something they invented to do to us yet.” You trail off eventually, shivering a little. 

Both trolls are watching you very carefully, and Vantas has moved off the couch. “So, I’m going to take your restraints off,” Captor says. He doesn’t move, and doesn’t have to. The collar, followed by the cuffs open and fall off. Then they fly across the room to the computer consoles there. You curl up on the couch. “I’m gonna go with, ‘major biotech phobia,’” he says in a dry tone. 

“Fuck you,” you say. 

“Yeah, I’m an asshole,” he says. “Also I’m not ashing you and the other asshole. I’m already middling him and Pyrope. Vantas, go get him my migraine blanket,” Captor says. Vantas doesn’t argue, retreating for some back room.

“Don’t need one,” you say, but accept it when Vantas returns with a warm, extremely heavy blanket. He hands it to Captor, who wraps it around you. “What the fuck.”

“You freaked out,” Captor says. “So, historical context. If you were watching horror movies--that time period was pretty much a hellscape of shitty caste-related bullshit that took centuries to get over because we had to wait for stupid people to die so younger less stupid people could take their place. When we weren’t killing them for excessive stupidity. I’m pretty sure you probably weren’t watching documentaries, or you’d have a better idea of the historical context. We try not to do horrible things to our own people any more. We try not to do horrible things to other people. This pretty much works as a system.” 

“Except for the imperialism” you mumble.

“I think it goes with having an empire,” Captor says with a smirk. “Also, you’ll notice we’re all wearing filters so we don’t become panting bitches. Still worried you might get used as a bong?” 

“Let’s say it’s a valid fucking concern,” you say. “With all the voyeurism shit, and the thing with big blue.” You sort of twist around to glare at Vantas. “What, no bullshit comments to make?” 

“Nah, I told him to back off and shut up.” 

Vantas snorts at that, but doesn’t say anything. He does make a rude gesture, which makes Captor snicker. 

“Thought I needed to be restrained outside Vantas’ quarters,” you mumble. 

“Sweet cool season pupa, restraining you if I have to won’t be a problem,” Captor says, sounding amused. 

“Tentacles?” You ask. Most of them looked like they were bundled together in twisted ropes in brackets along the walls and the ceiling, but there were some along the floor, like really weird tree roots. 

“My brain, actually,” Captor says, amused. “Biowire doesn’t make for a good sex toy. Bitey, and not in a fun way. There’s some really bad helming porn though where biowire is actually bulges, your brother didn’t make you watch those, did he?”

“I think that would have gone against the programming agenda,” Vantas says. “Sounds like he was shown murdercide, or maybe grimdark horror, not biowire porn.”

“My bro didn’t fucking program me,” you say, giving Vantas a glare. “And if he was, is your fucking with my head any different?” 

“Well, he certainly seemed to want you to be afraid of biotechnology,” Vantas says. “Biotechnology is evil because it’s unnatural and horrifying. Trolls are evil because they use biotechnology and do horrible things even to their own kind, and therefore you have to fight no matter what, or die trying--

Because trolls might use their biotechnology on humans and enslave them and turn them into pets or something. The hell of it is that it might be have been a logical argument to make hundreds of sweeps ago when the Condescension reigned. But the logic doesn’t scan now. The moment we realized there was a fucking problem with our fucked up pheromones, we came up with filters. Just to make sure the humans developed them too, we let prisoners escape with prototypes. Blockers were a little harder, but it was the same thing. The Condescension probably would have just rolled with it.” 

You can’t help the laugh. “‘Oh, we’re much nicer than we used to be,’ doesn’t work as an argument.”

“Yeah, probably not,” Vantas says. “But your brother has you convinced biotech is suffering, twisted and miserable, doing things it doesn’t want to do. Which…isn’t the case.” 

“How would you know?” You ask. 

Captor snorts. “Well _I_ know because I’m not covered in bee stings,” he says. “Also the technology is alive and xenopaths and zoopaths know when it’s not happy and not working the way it should because it isn’t happy. As for twisted, how many fucking ‘dog’ phenotypes do you have anyway? Some of them are fucking ridiculous. Tiny little gnaw beast sized things, big slobbery things with skin folds, barkbeasts with curly fur that gets cut like animal topiary, and all of them coming from an animal that looks almost nothing like any of them. And all of them seem to be pretty happy to look nothing at all like a howlbeast.”

“Didn’t turn them into _washing machines_ ,” you mumble. 

“A barkbeast wouldn’t work as a washing machine anyway,” Vantas says. “You’d want something that didn’t move around much--”

“Don’t want to know,” You say. “Don’t want to think about it.” 

“Heh. I’ll order dinner,” Vantas says. “If we don’t make "Captor eat actual food, his moirail will murder us all in our sleep.” 

“Aradia wouldn’t kill you,” Captor says. “Just make you wish you were dead.” 

“That better have been a royal ‘we’ asshole,” you mutter. 

“No, she will definitely blame you too,” Vantas says. “It’s just that I’d be the one dodging rocks the size of my head.” 

“You’d fucking deserve it,” you say. “Just in general, I don’t care if your boyfriend forgets to eat.”

“You will if he gets loopy and decides to play dodge the asteroids,” Vantas says. 

“Fuck you KK,” Captor says. "That has never fucking happened."

"Because we've remembered to feed you," Vantas says.

A cushion from the couch flies through the air, smacking Vantas in the head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a painting by Abrogio Lorenzetti


	9. ==>Dave: Consider a Village Looted at Night (the Village is You)

Vantas and Captor continue their friendly (hate friendly?) banter while Vantas orders dinner. This is possibly peak ashen domesticity here. They are talking a lot of shit at each other, and don’t seem to be paying a lot of attention to you. You are curled up in the heavy as fuck “migraine blanket.” It’s smooth, soft and has a microfiber feel with complicated geometric patterns in rust and yellow with crisp black lines separating out the colors, and making up the trim. It feels like you’re being coddled here. At the same time, it’s like they’re both ignoring you. It’s confusing as fuck, and pisses you off. So apparently this little field trip was to reassure you. Everything was fine in Troll-land and there was nothing inherently gross about biotechnology. (There absolutely was.) It did not stop being creepy that Vantas had his boyfriend powering his ship, even if said boyfriend said he _wanted_ to. You don’t feel reassured. Especially with the “well, you’re lucky you hadn’t been invaded by our previous head honcho, she really would have turned you all into sex toys. Don’t you feel lucky?” (You don’t feel lucky.)

It also occurs to you that if Captor’s in charge of ship systems, he’s probably in charge of security systems. This means there’s very likely a nonzero chance he’s been checking on you, and has seen you in compromising positions. This is not a thought you want to be having. (Then you think about “John” seeing you in compromising positions, since he’s head of security, and this is also not a thought you want to be having.) There is so much you don’t want to think about, but it keeps pressing inward. 

“…he even know he mumbles almost non-stop like that when he’s stressed?” Captor is asking Vantas.

“I don’t know, you could ask him,” Vantas says, sounding very patiently amused. (Yeah, it’s like he gives a fuck about you being included or what the fuck ever. You don’t give a fuck, and he is full of bullshit.) 

Captor makes a noise like “pffth,” at Vantas. “Hey,” he says to you, weirdly sympathetic. “You were pretty fucked up, so we were giving you space. Want a beer or something?” 

You are too off kilter to bitch about being treated liked a guest (fragile?) when you aren’t. Too off kilter to bitch about being given “space,” like Vantas didn’t get his kicks by being in your grill and fucking with your head. “Yeah, sure,” you say instead. 

Captor gets up and goes to his mini fridge, and tosses one to you as he sits back down and goes back to his energy drink. What he floats you is a brown ale and you don’t recognize the label. It isn’t too bad, though. “Must be hard being a dissident when you give everything you’re actually thinking away,” Captor says, half conversational, half mocking. 

“I don’t fucking mumble under my breath,” you say. 

“You kind of do,” Vantas says, sounding amused. “I have evidence.”

“I might talk to myself, but it’s only because I’d rather _talk to myself_ than put up with your mind game bullshit,” you continue. 

“What mindgames? KK is an idiot,” Captor murmurs behind his can of energy drink. The can does not hide the toothy grin. 

“Suck my fat bulge, Sollux,” Vantas says. “I’m not fucking with him half as much as he thinks I am.” 

“Yeah, whatever KK.” Captor finishes off his drink, and looks to you. “If you can’t deal with him, let me know and I’ll make him back off.” 

“Thought you weren’t going ash,” you say, not looking at either Captor or Vantas. 

“Mostly it wouldn’t be ash,” Captor says, which makes you look up. The smile on his face is a lot softer than the shit eating grin he’d turned on Vantas. “You’re just not hateable enough.”

Vantas makes a sort of strangled protest-noise. “The fuck, Sollux?” 

“JD’s right, sorry, KK,” Captor says. “His hot mess is more pitiful than pitch.” 

“The fuck?” you ask, echoing Vantas. It should be absolutely no surprise that Vantas’…people are talking about your pitch compatibility or what the fuck ever with Vantas, if you can call it that. As far as you could tell, they all seemed pretty calm about their boss keeping a terrorist captive and fucking his brains out. “You think I’m ‘pitiful’?” The thought of somehow taking advantage of that comes and goes. You aren’t sure you could do it, being some kind of femme fatale. Joke about it, yeah, actually do it, fuck no. Not from any righteous or self-righteous thing, but because you’d suck at it. 

“Eh, kind of?” Sollux makes a see-sawing gesture. “Kinda surprised KK hasn’t flipped and gotten all protective and sweet on you.” 

“No, he’s still a dick, even when he pulls some kind of coddling bullshit mindfuckery on me,” you tell him. 

“And Strider is just generally a dick,” Vantas says. 

Captor snickers. “KK’s not the one you go to for mindfuckery,” Captor says. “That’d be TZ.”

“Well, he didn’t do so well with her,” Vantas says, sounding amused. 

“Yeah I’m a delicate flower, so go fuck yourself,” you mutter. You don’t want to think about that sharp, nasty grin and the way you’d embarrassed yourself, cracking under her interrogation while Vantas and his quadrants watched. (The way Vantas chased his quadrants off and tucked you in when he decided you’d had enough. Jesus fuck.) “Want a turn at the quadrant bicycle or something?” you ask Captor. 

“You’re not the quadrant two wheeled device,” Captor says. “That would be his imperious dumbfuck over here.” He gives a nod in Vantas’ direction. Another bottle of beer floats from the refrigerator--at much higher velocity--toward Vantas. 

Vantas has just enough time to make a dirty gesture at Captor before catching the bottle. “Fuck you, Captor.” 

“See what I mean?” Captor asks smugly. Karkat makes an irritated noise at him, opening the bottle and taking a drink as Captor snickers. “Seriously though, you’re pity-bait. Child soldier? Mindfucked by his caretaker most of his life, raised under mentally and physically damaging conditions. You’re a fucking wreck.” 

“Be less of a wreck if I didn’t have to deal with your fucking boyfriend fucking me,” you say. “And I wasn’t being raised under ‘mentally and physically damaging’ conditions.” 

“Yeah, you sure about that?” Captor asks. “JD says otherwise.” 

“Jay Dee doesn’t know what he’s--“

“She. JD is Captor-speak for Jade,” Vantas says helpfully. “She’s a doctor, so I would assume she does.” 

“She’s a civilian, what would she know about training someone to fight?” 

“Probably more than your Bro,” Vantas says. “He was either the worst teacher in existence or was taking his frustrations out on you.” 

“It wasn’t like that,” you say. You don’t want him talking about your brother; you don’t want him implying shit about your brother. (At the same time, you remember Rose’s mom interrogating you and being disappointed at everything you didn’t know. How much you didn’t know. How much she hadn’t liked the idea that you’d been on missions since you were a kid. How angry she had been about it. You hadn’t been allowed back on missions until you were eighteen, and then you were mostly driving and shit. You were doing stakeouts and surveillance; shit like that. Things that didn’t get you involved directly in combat and that had burned, like you thought she hadn’t trusted you.) “Why the hell is this even something you care about? Oh wait, because I’m not nearly entertaining enough as a pitch chew toy because you think I was a poor little victim.” 

“You’re not a chew toy,” Vantas says impatiently. “That was never my intent.” 

“Couldn’t prove it by this bullshittery,” you snap back. 

“Got a point there, KK,” Captor says. “You absolutely fucked up.” Captor’s tone shifted on those last words, from mocking to completely serious and hard. You give Captor a wary look, wanting to figure out if you can use this, and if so, how. (You were still not going to try for a femme fatale thing. Masc fatale?) “As much as I hate to say it, you should have had Eridan along.” 

Vantas snorts. “I don’t see how he could have helped with all the wrecks I had to pull him out of when we were wigglers.”

“You were smarter about this shit when you were six,” Captor says disgustedly. “Dinner’s here, why don’t you get it?” Vantas bows low and exaggerated. “Yes your highness,” he says sarcastically and exits the helmsblock, dodging a pillow from the couch. 

“Eridan’s the asshole who was asking me a bunch of personal questions, right?” You ask. 

“Ampora’s a dumbass,” Sollux says. “But not that bad for a fish.” 

“What does it mean if someone thinks their moirail is a dick?” you ask, remembering some of the conversation Vantas had with his matesprit about Ampora. 

Captor snorts. “Obvious serendipity. You aren’t always going to like or even love your moirail. You feel sorry for them being such a fuck up so you fuss at them to eat or get some goddamn sleep or sit down and think about what they’ve done. Eridan was a needy little shit who didn’t respect the non-concupiscent quadrants so it took him sweeps to go ‘oh, Kar’s pale for me, why didn’t I see that,’” Captor says, his voice drawling into what you recognize as a seadweller accent. “And we all said, ‘because the inside of your skull is a cylindrical chum container Ampora.’ If ED were here, I think KK would be maybe ten percent less stupid.” 

“So I just would have been kept like a trophy if he were here?” You ask, a little flippantly. “Or would I have been actually executed?”

Captor shrugs. “Don’t think execution would have been an option, for you,” he says. 

“Because your boyfriend has a hate boner for me?” 

“Not really,” Captor says. “I think he would have wanted both you and Lalonde to be representatives of Earth’s dissident factions. Something that might still be a thing.”

“Yeah, no,” you say. “We’re not going to help you take over, after fighting you for so long.” You’re pretty sure Roxy and your Bro wouldn’t have stood for it, least of all your grandfather. (Who wouldn’t have wanted the opportunity to be a “representative of the dissident factions” either, unless it was to get closer to the Emperor for assassination purposes.) 

Captor’s brows lift. “You sure about that? Lalonde has managed to be pretty civil with His Comprehension.”

“He probably isn’t fucking her.” And that is not a thought you want to have, Vantas extremely Senior doing to Rose what his kid was doing to you. If she didn’t find a way to kill him, you would. Fuck them all. If anyone hurt Rose you’d kill them all. (She’d get them first. You could always trust her to take care of herself and make anyone who did got in her face about anything regret it.) 

“He isn’t,” Captor says. “HIC has his own things going on, and they definitely don’t include Lalonde.” 

“Not a rapist like his kid?” you ask flatly. 

“Take it to mean that my Ancestor has done his share of dumbfuck things and had his share of dumbfuck obsessions,” Vantas says, coming back into the helmsblock with a cart full of dishes. “And none of them include your quadrantmate.” 

“So I’m a dumbfuck thing you’re doing?” you ask. 

“ _He’s_ just a dumbfuck,” Captor says. “Also, I almost understand the pitch thing. Goddamn Strider.” He sounds both disgusted and amused. He floats one of the trays over to you, and gives you a beer from his fridge. The tray is full of fried fish and shrimp, along with French fries. You balance the tray on your knees and dig in. 

“I don’t want to say it’s an eye for an eye thing, because that’s disgusting,” Vantas says, taking his own tray and sitting opposite Captor, so you’re both bookending him. “But it’s at least irony, which may be worse than being eye for an eye.” 

You have no idea what the fuck they’re talking around. 

“You know exactly what the fuck we’re talking about,” Vantas says. He picks up a piece of fish and bites it in half. “Or do you still think it isn’t rape if it’s a troll?”

Your stomach turns, and you drop the piece of fish you’d been eating. “I don’t see how you get to preach at me,” you say, voice shaking a little. “About anything.” 

“Maybe I don’t,” Vantas says. “And yet.” 

“I thought we were supposed to be curing my biotech phobia, not critiquing my methods as a terrorist,” you say. 

“Both is always an option,” Captor says. “It’s always interesting when a terrorist calls himself a terrorist. And by interesting I mean weird as fuck.” 

“No it tracks,” Vantas says. “His brother referred to himself as a freedom fighter.” 

“Why are we making this about my brother? Again I’d like to point out. Are you sure you don’t actually have the pitch thing for him instead of me?” 

“Still not pitch for your brother,” Vantas says. “But for you, from what I’ve learned about you, everything is about your brother.” 

“Christ blowing a cracker,” you mutter, and pick your piece of fish back up; the piece of fish that is actually fish and not a sub-species/caste slur. You don’t have any other kind of piece of fish. Wait did that need to be explained? Probably not; Vantas’ thing where he apparently knew everything about you because he’d been _stalking you for years,_ and had apparently been profiling you like some kind of forensic psychologist in a goddamn crime drama had long ago gotten beyond annoying as fuck. (It did not help that Rose had a similar theory about your feelings about your brother. You could at least make Rose stop with the analysis by bringing up her mom. There was no such off switch with Vantas) “He raised me. He was a complete bastard but he raised me and taught me how to fight. If I didn’t believe in what he was fighting for, I wouldn’t be fighting.” 

“So you’re admitting it is, in fact all about your brother,” Vantas says slowly. 

“It’s about being conquered by giant horny aliens!” 

“But also about your brother,” Vantas says, looking amused. 

“I’m going to fucking shove this tray up your ass,” you growl. 

“No you aren’t,” Captor says. “If either of you start shit in my goddamn helmsblock I will kick both your asses.” 

“I thought I was too fucking pitiful for ash,” you shoot back. 

“I can feel pity for you _and_ kick your ass, DS,” Captor says.

Again, the idea comes and goes to somehow…seduce Captor. Get him on your side somehow. You try not to look at him speculatively, and can’t not do that thing. He isn’t weirdly handsome like Vantas. His teeth and nose are too big for his face, he’s long and gangly and sits and generally moves like a sack of potatoes. He isn’t ugly either; his features are more “cute nerd,” than anything else. There’s also a buzz just out of your hearing range when he speaks that’s weirdly pleasant. He’s giving you an amused look, and you look away. “Yeah, whatever.” You stuff your face with fish and chips. 

Because they’re both immense assholes, they play a bunch of “intro to biotech” vids intended for what you guess is for the preteen and younger crowd. You get to watch cartoon characters explain genetics, bio-design and engineering, and examples of biotechnology in day to day living. You are both fascinated, and completely disgusted by the examples. Beetle electrical generators, game grubs, data grubs, recuperacoons, loadgapers, and the bug-buggies that were getting more and more visible on the streets. Animals remade into machine parts and vehicles and tools. It makes your skin crawl, and after a while you can’t even look at the screen. 

Captor has his hand on your head, petting your hair. “You okay Strider?” he asks. 

“I’m not fucking bothered by fucking kid shows,” you mutter, and bat at his hand. He pulls away, but goes back to petting you. “What the fuck.” Vantas is pointedly not looking in your direction, like he’s embarrassed by you. (Or maybe by Captor.) Fuck him. You glare at him, but he continues to ignore you. 

“Sure looks like it,” Captor says. “You need to get over the biotech phobia.”

“What, are you pale for me?” you ask. Jesus. You still worried about the light worms in your room falling on you in the night. It was the only real example of biotech in the room. The toilet, sink and shower were normal, and so was the flooring. You wonder if the room had been designed with your perfectly rational dislike of biotech in mind. 

“Two moirails,” Captor says thoughtfully. “Satisfying my dualistic side and my kinky side…nah. Aradia wouldn’t go for it.” 

“How the hell is brushing someone’s hair on a pile of dirty laundry and blankets in any way kinky,” you mutter. “Quadrants are fucking stupid.” 

“You are adorably naïve,” Captor says. “Just about anything can be kinky. Feet can be kinky, hair braiding can be kinky, trusting someone enough to let them tie--”

Vantas covers Captor’s mouth. “No. I don’t want to hear about what you get up to with your moirail,” he says. “Ever.” Captor grabs hold of Vantas hand and bites him. Vantas yelps and they both roll off the couch. Their food goes flying across the floor as they wrestle with each other until Vantas gets Captor pinned. 

“You’re just jealous AR is way cuter than ED,” Captor pants. 

“Right because I’m completely shallow,” Vantas says. “Anyway, Eridan is the cuter one.”

“If you think chum is cute,” Captor shoots back, struggling to heave Vantas off of him, but doesn’t use his psionics. 

“Maybe I do, maybe fish guts are completely charming to me, ever think of that?” 

“If I did, it was only in my nightmares,” Captor says, still struggling. Vantas holds on type. “Get off.” 

“You want to?” Vantas says, sounding so hopeful about it, you can’t help the snort. 

Captor thumps his head against the floor. There’s a sense he’s rolling his eyes. “Yes KK, I desperately want you to take me on the floor of my helmsblock while your pitch crush looks on. The thought makes me wet, I need you to fuck me now,” he drones. 

This makes you snicker, and Captor flashes a brief grin full of doubled fangs at you. Red and blue sparks crackle around Vantas’ ears, and he yelps, rolling away from Captor. “Ow, dammit, Sollux,” Vantas complains. 

“Don’t be a wiggler, that hardly hurt,” Captor says, sitting up and giving the scattered food a rueful look. “Ten second rule, and you get to clean up the grease stains,” he tells Vantas, and uses his psionics to return the food to the trays, and apparently also heat it up. Vantas meanwhile mutters and wipes the deck down with damp sanitizing towels. 

After dinner, there’s some more discussion and lectures on biotechnology, then you get chained back up and re-blindfolded. Vantas leads you past humming hive servers and into the main passages of the ship. From there, you get walked back to his apartment. The both of you are quiet, and the ship makes ship noises; mostly the hum of ventilation. How did you not know this was a ship? (It helped you’d been confined mostly to your room, which didn’t have any windows.) Back in his apartment, he walks you to his room, slipping off your blindfold. You’re a little nervous, not able to help wondering if you were somehow “in trouble” for something you did. “You’re not in trouble,” he says. 

“I didn’t say anything,” you protest. 

“You really didn’t have to,” Vantas replies. He takes off most of the chains, pausing at the collar. “I really don’t like this collar,” he says, almost absently as he removes it. 

“What a coincidence, I don’t either,” you say flippantly, and then you freeze as the collar is replaced by Vantas’ hand, wrapped all the way around your neck. He isn’t squeezing or anything like that; it’s a very loose grip. You could probably break his hold, but you don’t move, and your pulse is hammering. You could press into his hand; he could break your neck. You’re having crazy thoughts.

“A choker, maybe,” Vantas says thoughtfully, and lets you go. “Obsidian set in matte black iron. Maybe with a matching circlet.” 

“Are we playing dress up now?” you ask. “A circlet would look fucking stupid by the way.”

“Maybe later,” Vantas says, giving you a sharp toothed grin. “Why don’t we watch a movie?” 

The movie is _A Beautiful Cerulean from Alternia is Kidnapped to the Fantastical Counter-Alternia Where He Is Coerced Into Being the Body Double For An Evil King Seeking To Escape the Vengeance of a Rebellion. Featuring Whipping, Ritual Submission, Ritual Dominance and Assumption of inherent Dominance of a Specific Gender Various Acts of Violence And a Minor Obsession With The Growth and Strength Properties of Troll Hair_ and it is every bit as terrible as Vantas indicated it was. Anything that might have been interesting about the plot was murdered by the horrific, boring and repetitive dialog and flat characters. It wasn’t even good as porn; it took itself too seriously. “Why are we watching this? I thought you hated this movie. Wait, this is because you hate me, isn’t it?”

“I do hate this movie,” Vantas says. “But it’s so bad; I can’t look away, which translates to multiple viewings. I thought it might take your mind off of the horrors of biotechnology.” 

“And think of the horrors of bad troll porn instead,” you say. “This is really bad.” You were going to get earwormed by the repetitive line, “use a boy however you wish, mistress,” and other bullshit, you just knew it. The dialog was really, really repetitive. 

“I won’t torture you with the entire franchise. Well, I won’t torture myself with the entire franchise, unless Equius has been very good,” Vantas says with a smirk. 

“I don’t want to hear about you Big Blue doing the do,” you mutter, looking down at your hands. “Especially after being the goddamn party favor.” (In the back of your head, you are remembering the things Vantas did to “punish” Big Blue for breaking the rope he was tied up in. What he did to you, with Big Blue looking on, and you have a stupid impulse to grab a pillow to cover your crotch, but it’s too late already. Your dick is taking a definite interest in Vantas doing the do with you.)

“That was barely hearing about anything,” Vantas says, looking amused. His gaze doesn’t drop down to your crotch, and you have an irritated thought that somehow, he was doing it on purpose. (What he was doing on purpose, you weren’t clear on. But it was on purpose.) “What do you think of Sollux?”

You give Vantas a look, sidelong. It’s not a question you were expecting. You don’t know why he’s asking, and that makes you nervous. “What do you want me to tell you?” you ask. 

“What you think about him,” he says, very patiently. “Do you think you could get along with him? Do you like him?” 

That’s…a little confusing. It was also unnerving, and weirdly upsetting. Was he finally getting bored with you and passing you around to his other quadrants? Should you be glad he was passing you to his quadrants and not members of his court or the military or something? Was that going to happen next? How should you feel about any of this? You feel a little sick, and your throat feels dry as you actually ask him, “So, am I your quadrant bicycle?” 

Vantas stares at you for a moment, his fuchsia eyes unblinking. “I’m not passing you around,” he says patiently. “I’m asking what you think of Sollux.” 

The movie plays on through its ending and the rolling of credits. “I dunno, he’s okay for a troll,” you say. You watch the credits, and don’t look at Vantas. “I don’t have any choice but to get along with him, right?” 

“I’d like you to get along with all of my quadrants,” Vantas says. “So far you don’t seem to mind Equius, dislike Eridan so far and are terrified of Terezi. Now I’m trying to nail down your thoughts on Sollux.” 

“I’m not terrified of Pyrope,” you mutter. (You were completely terrified of Pyrope.) “I don’t understand why you want to know. I’m not in your quadrants. You know I’m not in your quadrants.” Your voice gets a little louder at the last, angry and confused. 

“You’ll forgive me if I doubt you,” Vantas says with dry amusement. “I thought you were going to piss yourself when she interrogated you. Then you started crying.” 

“Fuck you,” you say, still not looking at him. “Your girlfriend is a vicious psychotic bitch.” 

Vantas sighs, all fond and shit, as if you’d somehow complimented her. “She’s amazing. Sharp as a blade, as voracious for the truth as a dragon is for hoardgeld. But her relationship with John means any interaction between you needs to be supervised until John and you settle down.” 

You snort at that. “Like fuck that’s going to happen,” you mutter. Relationship? Were Terezi and John fucking? What quadrant did they think they were in? 

“And no interaction at all, with John, which is something of a problem,” Vantas continues. “Outside of my quadrants, how do you feel about Jade? She’s been defending you the most in the Scream Like a Wiggler forum.” 

“I don’t need anyone to defend me,” you say. “I don’t need her to defend me, for whatever reason she’s doing it.” 

“You know exactly why,” Vantas returns. “Want me to call up your medical records?” 

“Fuck off,” you say. _She cares about what she thinks my brother did, but not what you’re doing so fuck her._

“I think,” Vantas says slowly. “You have no idea what she thinks of me. You should ask her.” 

You shrug, sharply. Feel a certain unease that yeah, you actually said that out loud, when you thought you were just thinking it. (How the hell did you manage anything if you’ve been muttering under your breath all this time?) “Are we doing something here, or is this just mind fuck Strider hour?”

“Should we be doing something?” Vantas asks, and now you know he’s fucking with you. 

“I don’t fucking know, you’re the bastard who knows everything about me,” you snap. “Fuck me, play dress up. Play dress up, then fuck me. I don’t fucking care.” You’re shaking a little, fear or anger and the hell of it is you can’t tell. 

“Well, I suppose if it’s the only way to make you wear the jewelry I bought for you,” Vantas says. 

He gets out the jewelry; and a selection of clothes even fancier than what you have in your closet. Troll style and human style suits, sarongs. There’s a big box of jewelry, settings and chains in gold, silver, iron and platinum, black, red or fuchsia stones. His personal sign is on some of them, something like the astrological symbol for Cancer, except they were called the Manacles. (There’s some kind of Significant Story about the sign that you don’t quite remember because you never gave a fuck, and you’d heard that the Imperial Regalia for the emperor involved wrist cuffs for some reason.) 

The asshole gave you a sign. It’s an oldstyle record with a ragged mark across it, a scratch. “What the fuck?” You ask him. “TurntechGodhead,” Vantas says. “Rotating audio production device, disc shaped grooved audio storage device. Out of several choices it seemed the most appropriate” 

“No, why the fuck do I have a sign?” 

Vantas’ eyebrows go up. “Well, at least one reason is that everyone should have one. Another reason is that I wanted a sign of yours to wear. Do you not like it?” 

“I have no idea of how to feel about it,” you tell him. 

“You don’t have to feel anything about it,” he says. He puts his hands on you and draws you in. His kiss is gentle and careful, with little nips that are a lot less careful. You can’t help the sigh, you can’t help leaning into him. He has you try out the clothes, put on the jewelry. You protest, but not too hard. The way he looks at you, admiring and wanting does something for you. The suits are nice, and they fit you perfectly. (You kind of want him to tear them off you. Every time he touches you with his cool fingers, you heat up a little more, every time he adjusts whatever your wearing, it sends little jittery feelings all through you, electric and needy.) You like the suits, don’t know what to think about the sarongs. The only thing you really object to is the jewelry. They’re too much, too girly, and too much a sign somehow that he owns your ass. You don’t want to be decorated like a goddamn Christmas tree. 

Vantas likes looking at you though, likes touching you. Likes arguing you into wearing necklaces, bracelets, cuff links, these little gold chains with brooches on either end that clip to the lapels of a jacket. He tries out hook-over earrings and clips. He speculates out loud about getting your ears re-pierced just to annoy you. (The speculation is said in the exact tone you might give about wondering if you wanted to get your car painted or something. It’s not him asking you shit. You want to fucking punch him, but you don’t.) 

Vantas reaches some point of being pleased with your appearance, so he tugs you into the dressing room to show you. You’re wearing a human style black suit with your “sign” picked out in white with a black slash on your shoulder. You’re wearing mostly polished iron set with red and black stones. There are rings, bracelets, a necklace, a pin for your tie. “You look good.” 

“Your private fashion doll,” you say in a strangled voice. 

“You liked it,” Vantas says. His hands are around your hips, and one of them drifts over to your crotch. You feel yourself heat up as he presses up against you, as he feels the outline of your cock. He rubs and you can’t help the stupid little noise you make. “You like this too.” 

“My dick does. The rest of me thinks _you’re_ a dick,” you mutter. 

He laughs at you, draws you into his quadrant block and undoes all of his hard work getting you into the suit and jewelry. You’re laid out flat on the concupiscent platform and he kisses you, hungry and eager. By now this should all be familiar territory, he shouldn’t be able to get as much of a rise out of you, you’re still wearing your filter, but his excitement gets to you and you respond, moaning and arching up into his touch. Everything he does feels good, intense and your every nerve is on fire from his touch. He works his way down your body until he gets down to your dick, and then he mostly focuses on your inner thighs until you’re begging. 

“Vantas, please,” you gasp when he finally he wraps his mouth around your dick. His rough tongue leaves your dick feeling sensitive and tingling, the suction is driving you out of your mind. “Please.” 

Vantas hums at you amused and pleased. He laughs at the not-a-whimper you let loose as he comes up to kiss you. You grind up against him, trying to get the friction back, but he pushes your hips away. “Not yet,” he says, and goes back too driving you out of your mind. He plays with you, alternating sucking you off with kissing you. You want to retaliate, but he won’t let you, not for what feels like hours. 

As big as he is, in more than one way, he rides you, carefully propped so he doesn’t crush you. It’s almost too much for you, the way him fucking you was too much. His nook is cool and wet, and starts out a little loose--he’s bigger in more than one way--but he tightens down and the things you’ve felt moving against your tongue and lips a few times when he had you eat him out or finger him are wrapping around your dick and adding their own funtime sensations to the mix. He’s fucking you more than you’re fucking him, even like this. He hums, almost sings to himself as he kisses you, as he fucks you. Your entire body thrums with the deep notes, shivers with the occasional high note. 

You beg, stupid and shameless, out of your head. He’s losing it too, and god, that’s a rush. You want to tip him right over, like the time you jumped him. Your mind flashes around wildly, trying to find something to drive him nuts, to make him come. The first things that come to mind is bullshit from the movie. (Yeah, you were earwormed.) “I’m yours, use me, fuck me well master,” you moan. 

He gives you such a look you laugh (you almost come). You keep up the stupid begging with lines from the movie until he kisses you to shut you up. His eyes are bright, sclera not quite orange when he comes. “You little shit,” he growls as he empties with a groaning sigh into the bucket at the center of the platform. “I shouldn’t let you come at all,” he says as he wraps himself around you. He strokes you off until you’re squirming and begging him to stop, the sensation too much for your over sensitive cock. He doesn’t really let up until you’re almost sobbing. Then he makes you lie flat, hands at your side. 

He laughs at you, and you swear at him. This just makes him laugh more. He curls up around you, and you get absolutely no sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Village Looted at Night is a painting by Esaias van de Velde.


End file.
